The Book of Contracts

A Partnership Contract

The two of them came before us to the court and said as follows, “I entered into this partnership of my own will and we made a partnership between us. And I, So-and-so son of So-and-so, placed the principal in the middle; the principal was such-and-such an amount of money, our entire money was such-and-such, and it was in the possession of both of us”—if the money is in the possession of them both. But if the money is in the possession of one of them, they write as follows: “And the initial funds [i.e., the principal, in] this money pouch is in the possession of So-and-so.”

And if the two of them sit [together] in a store, they write: “The two of us sit in a store and deal in commerce. Any profit with the help of heaven: half to each of us; neither of us receives more than the other.”

If they stipulated between themselves that each of them may buy and sell by himself or in the presence of his partner as he sees fit, they write: “Each of us may sell and buy as he sees fit, either in the presence of his colleague or by himself.” And if they desire that nothing may be done without the consent of them both, they write: “And neither of us may buy or sell, other than in the presence of his colleague or with his consent.”

If one of them can give [money] in credit, which is called nasīya in the Muslim language, they write: “The one of us who sees fit to give anything as credit shall give as he sees fit.”

If there is a time period for the partnership, [e.g.,] that they may not divide the assets before a year or two, they write: “The time of this partnership is such-and-such. And if either of us claims half before the time of this partnership is completed, he may not do so. Rather, each of us places [his share] on lien to his colleague from now for each day of this time period.”

If they stipulated between them that whenever either requests a division of the assets, they will divide, they write: “[If] one of us claims half whenever he wants, he may do so, and his colleague may not prevent him from [taking his] half nor place it under lien.”

If they stipulated between them that they will make an accounting at fixed intervals, they write: “We will make an account of everything that is in our possession and everything that we have taken and given, and each of us will take that which he has earned from the profits.”

And they write: “Each of us accepts upon himself, regarding his colleague, by the trust of heaven, that we will not cheat each other, nor hide anything at all from one another, nor will we act deceptively, nor conspiratorially. Rather, we will be faithful, forthright, and truthful.

And if they want formally to trust each other or to stipulate that one of them will be trusted, so that he cannot be made to take the oath of partnership [i.e., that one has not violated the terms of the partnership], they [must] specify this. And if they do not formally trust [each other], they leave [this] unstated in the document. They conclude [the agreement of] the document through formal acquisition.