Chapter: The worker’s obligations in a musāqāh agreement

The musāqī—the laborer engaged under a musāqāh contract—is responsible for pollinating the date-palms, maintaining the wells, irrigating, guarding the orchard, and harvesting the crop. With regard to grapevines he must prune, dig, clear, reinforce, guard, and pick. The same principle applies to every other kind of fruit: he must carry out whatever customary tasks that crop ordinarily requires, according to local practice. All plowing, digging, and other operations necessary for the fruit’s growth must be clearly defined and understood.

He is obliged to provide whatever irrigation the contract assigns to him, to the extent that the fruit actually needs it. He is not required to perform work from which the crop derives no benefit, or from which it derives no benefit for most of the contract’s duration—such as digging a new well, upgrading a jointly owned spring, or any improvement whose benefit will remain exclusively with the orchard owner after the musāqāh ends. It is impermissible to stipulate any of those tasks upon him.

The worker must, however, excavate and clean the spring, repair the watercourse, and seal any breaches in the protective walls. Anything cut from the palm fronds, fibers, or manure is shared between the two parties in proportion to their respective shares of the fruit.

A musāqāh contract is binding on both parties; neither may rescind it without the other’s consent.