—and, in its more spacious sections, for buying and selling on condition that the activity causes no congestion and harms no passer-by. The people of every city, in every age, have tacitly allowed this without objection, for it is a lawful benefit that brings no harm and is therefore not forbidden—just like merely walking through the street.

Chapter on Musāqāt and Muzāraʿah

Musāqāt is derived from its chief task: watering.

Legal definition: handing over an orchard to someone who will irrigate and tend it in return for an agreed-upon share of its fruit.

Muzāraʿah is taken from the word “cultivation”: handing over farmland to someone who will sow and harvest it in return for an agreed-upon share of what it produces.

Both musāqāt and muzāraʿah are partnership contracts founded on equity between the two partners. The owners of the trees or the land stand in the same position as the owner of capital who entrusts money to a muḍārib in commerce, while the musāqī and the muzāriʿ are like the trader who works with that capital. Profit is shared between them, and liability rests upon them both.

From this it is clear that these contracts involve less uncertainty (gharar) and ambiguity than leasing, and they accord more closely with analogy and justice; hence they remain upon the original rule of permissibility. They are not, as some have claimed, contrary to analogy on the mistaken assumption that they are a type of lease, which requires precise knowledge of both the work and the wage.

First Ḥadīth

ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿUmar, may Allah be pleased with them both, reported that the Prophet ﷺ made an agreement with the people of Khaybar that they would receive half of whatever it produced in fruit or crops.

Lexical notes
• “Half of whatever it produced”: the word shaṭr can bear several meanings, among them “half,” which is what is intended here.
• “Fruit” (thamar)—with a thā (th)—is general, covering the produce of date-palms, grapevines, and all other kinds of fruit.

Overall meaning
Khaybar was an agricultural settlement inhabited by a community of Jews. When the Prophet ﷺ conquered it in the seventh year after the Hijrah, he distributed its lands and farms among the victors. Those Companions were occupied with striving in Allah’s cause and calling people to Him, while the Jews of Khaybar, through long experience, were more skilled in agriculture. For that reason the Prophet ﷺ allowed them to remain