Chapter: A Comprehensive Treatment of Hiring Contracts and the Forms That Remain Lawful Despite Reports of Prohibition

Every task that yields a benefit and whose performance is itself lawful may be the subject of a hiring contract. It is therefore permissible to pay wages to tutors who teach Qur’an recitation, provided the monthly amount each tutor receives is specified according to the customary assessment of his effort. Mālik also allowed payment that is contingent upon a pupil’s attaining proficiency in a specific portion of the Qur’an, just as he permitted hiring a teacher for a set monthly or yearly wage.

The Qur’an expressly mentions the hiring of a wet-nurse, even though the quantity of milk an infant will consume each day and night—or at any given moment—cannot be known in advance. Since there is no practical way to measure this and precise knowledge of it is unattainable, the contract involves neither excessive uncertainty nor gambling and is treated as a customary transaction among people.

If someone hires a wet-nurse to breast-feed or care for a child for a fixed term and the child dies before the term is complete, the contract is annulled, and the nurse is entitled only to the portion of the wage corresponding to the time that has elapsed.

Scholars have differed over the permissibility of hiring an imam to lead the people in obligatory or supererogatory prayers. Mālik considered it disliked for voluntary prayers and even more dislike-worthy for the obligatory ones.