Giving a seventh or a tenth of the crop as a wage

Question

Question: If a cultivator engages labourers to reap the field on the following term: “You will cut my paddy, bring it to my house, and after threshing, of whatever paddy there is, a seventh or a tenth share will be yours and the rest is the owner’s”; and likewise cultivators fix a seventh or a tenth share from their fields also for mung beans and red lentils, and they pick them for this fixed share — in these cases is picking the crops permissible or not? If it is permissible, then in which cases?

Answer

In this case it is impermissible: [ar]لأنه في معنى قفيز الطحان، وقد ورد النهي عنه[/ar] “Because it falls within the meaning of qafiz al-tahhan (the miller’s measure), and the prohibition of it has been reported.” The permissible form is that a price (a sum of money) be fixed as the wage, or that it be fixed at a rate per maund (a unit of weight, ≈ 37 kg)

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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