Book of Loan for Use

A loan for use (ʿāriyah) is an entrusted property for which the borrower is not held liable when the object is any living creature—whether a slave or a riding animal—or a house, or any other visible item that is not easily hidden. Liability for all such things arises only in the same situations that create liability for all trusts: transgression, negligence, or employing the article for a purpose more harmful than that for which it was borrowed.

By contrast, with jewelry, clothing, vessels, weapons, and every other movable whose loss can go unnoticed, the borrower’s mere claim that it has disappeared is not accepted; he remains liable unless he produces proof that it perished without negligence, waste, or misuse on his part. The same ruling applies to gold dinars, silver dirhams, copper coins, and foodstuffs, except that in these cases he must return another item identical in kind, or equal in weight and description. For all the goods just mentioned that can be concealed, he is liable for their market value.

This, in its entirety, is the distilled position of Imam Malik on loans for use. It is also reported from Malik that whenever a borrower possesses an item that can be concealed, he is liable for it if it is destroyed in his hands, whether or not he can establish evidence of its loss. And if a condition is set that the borrower will be liable for property that cannot be concealed—such as livestock and the like—or that he will not be liable for property that can be concealed, such a condition is invalid, and it