must pay the original hire as well as the market-rate hire for the excess journey.
Mālik is unanimous in holding that if the lessee exceeds the agreement by adding to the animal a load that was not stipulated, or a type of load such an animal is not normally meant to bear, he must pay a proportional hire for that extra weight; and should the beast be ruined, he is then liable for it as already set out. Conversely, if the additional load is of the kind—or lighter—that the animal customarily carries, nothing further is due from him.
If the beast dies before reaching the place for which it was hired, the owner of the goods must pay only that portion of the hire corresponding to the distance already travelled. Yet if the goods perish while the animal survives, the hirer owes nothing, for he has derived no benefit from his merchandise. This is the version related by the Medinan transmitters from Mālik, and many of his foundational rulings attest to it.
Ismāʿīl nevertheless applies here the report transmitted by Ibn Nāfiʿ from Mālik regarding a ship—that a fraction of the hire is owed in proportion to the distance covered.
The gist of Ibn al-Qāsim’s narration—which is also the view of most Egyptian jurists—concerning one who hires carriage for goods to a town and the goods are lost before arrival is as follows:
• If the loss is caused by the beast or its handler—such as stumbling, slipping, snapped ropes, and the like—the owner of the mount is entitled to no hire and bears no liability for what was destroyed, unless he deceived them about the animal, neglected it, or acted recklessly; then he is liable, and once he accepts liability he is entitled to the hire.
• If the goods are lost through a cause unconnected to the animal—fire consuming them or bandits seizing them—the owner of the mount receives the full hire, and the owner of the goods must supply equivalent cargo so that the carrier can convey it to the agreed destination.
If the animal strays while carrying the merchandise, the owner of the goods owes no hire, nor does the owner of the beast incur liability.
Whoever hires a mount for pilgrimage and then dies, the hire is a debt upon his estate, and his heirs may substitute another rider in his place.