Rafi' ibn Rafi' said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) called me and said: "What do you do with your fields?" I said: "We lease them for a quarter, or for specific loads of dates or barley." He said: "Do not do that. Cultivate them yourselves, or hold onto them." Agreed upon. Abu Sa'id also narrated that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) forbade al-muhaqalah. Al-muhaqalah is leasing land for wheat. Our argument is the statement of Rafi': "As for leasing it for something known and guaranteed, there is no harm in it." This is because it is a known and guaranteed compensation that is not taken as a means to usury, so its leasing is permissible, just like monetary values. The hadith of Zahir [ibn Rafi'] has already been discussed in the chapter on sharecropping, noting that it carries the possibility of prohibiting leasing it in that manner if it is from the produce that comes out of it, and it carries the possibility of prohibiting it if he leases it for a quarter or specific loads. The hadith of Abu Sa'id carries the possibility of forbidding leasing it for wheat specifically if he leases it for the purpose of cultivating wheat. The second category: leasing it for a known food item of the same type that is cultivated in it, such as leasing it for a measure (qufzan) of wheat to cultivate it. Abu al-Khattab said: There are two narrations regarding this. The first is prohibition, which is the one mentioned by the Qadi as the school's position, and it is the opinion of Malik, due to the aforementioned hadiths and because it is a pretext for sharecropping for a known portion of what comes out of it. This is because he substitutes the phrasing "I sharecrop with you" with "I lease to you," thereby making it sharecropping under the guise of leasing, and pretexts (dara'i') are taken into consideration. The second is the permissibility of that, which was chosen by Abu al-Khattab and is the opinion of Abu Hanifah,