Giving land on hire and fixing a share of the produce as the rent

Question

Question: If a landlord gives his land to a cultivator for one year or more for farming, and it is settled that of all the paddy (unhusked rice) produced in the field a third or a half will go to the landlord and the rest to the cultivator, but the expenses of the servant and plough, seed and the like are on the cultivator, the landlord not being responsible for these expenses — in all these cases, is taking rent for the land, and the cultivator’s farming on these terms, permissible or not?

Answer

In this case this transaction is valid according to the Sharia: [ar]وكذا صحت لو كان الأرض والبذر لزيد والبقر والعمل للآخر والأرض له والباقي للآخر[/ar] “And likewise it is valid if the land and the seed are Zayd’s and the oxen and the labour the other’s; the land his and the rest the other’s” (“al-Durr al-Mukhtar”, vol. 5, p. 195).

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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