Is it permissible to give a person a sum of money to work with, and to share the profit equally, whatever the ratio may be?

The questioner : Is it permissible to give a person a sum of money to work with, and to share the resulting profit equally, whatever the ratio may be? I ask for guidance on this.

The Shaykh : Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and I send prayers and peace upon our Prophet Muhammad, and upon his family and his Companions, and upon those who follow them in excellence until the Day of Judgment. Before answering this question, I would like to mention a useful rule in the chapter of transactions, which is that the original ruling in transactions is permissibility, until evidence arises to prohibit it. This is the opposite of acts of worship, where the original ruling is prohibition, until evidence arises establishing their legitimacy. These are two important rules that a student of knowledge benefits from. If someone wants to perform an act of worship to worship Allah with, we tell him: you cannot perform this act of worship until it is established that it is a prescribed act of worship indicated by the Book and the Sunnah. If it is not prescribed, then the original ruling is prohibition, based on the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him): As for transactions, the original ruling is permissibility. So if a person contracts with another, whatever the contract may be, he is not required to provide evidence for its permissibility, because the original ruling is with him. Rather, the one who prohibits this transaction is required to provide evidence for its prohibition, because the one who has the original ruling is not required to provide evidence for its establishment.
Based on this, we say: This transaction that the questioner asked about, which is for a person to pay a known amount of money to another and say, "Trade with this money, and whatever profit is obtained is between us in halves, or a quarter is mine and three quarters are yours, or three quarters are mine and a quarter is yours," according to what they agree upon. We say: There is nothing wrong with this transaction, and it is permissible. Some scholars have transmitted the consensus of the Muslims on its permissibility. This is called mudarabah, taken from the saying of Allah the Exalted: It contains the benefit of both parties: the owner of the money benefits from the profit resulting from utilizing his money, and the worker benefits from the gain obtained from this money, which he would not have found had Allah not facilitated this man for him. However, it must be known that this contract must be free from the suspicion of gambling and maysir, meaning that the loss and the gain must be shared equally between the owner of the money and the worker. This is by making the portion stipulated for the worker a known, undivided share, such as half, a quarter, a third, an eighth, a tenth, or the like.
Based on this, if he said: "Take this money and trade with it. The profit in the first month is yours, and the profit in the second month is mine," then this is not permissible, because it may profit greatly in the first month and not profit in the second, or the reverse may happen. Likewise, if he said: "Take this money and trade with it. The profit in Makkah is yours, and the profit in al-Madinah is mine," then this is also not permissible, because it may profit greatly in Makkah and not profit in al-Madinah, or the reverse. Likewise, if he said: "Take this money and trade with it. The profit from cars is yours, and the profit from fabrics is mine," then this is also not permissible, because it may profit greatly from cars rather than fabrics, or the reverse.
Likewise, if he said: "Take this money and trade with it. A thousand riyals of the profit is yours, and the rest is mine," or "A thousand riyals of the profit is mine, and the rest is yours," then this is not permissible. This is because it may only profit a thousand riyals, in which case the one who has the thousand is the winner and the other is not, or it may not profit a thousand riyals, or it may profit tens of thousands. So this is also not permissible.
Likewise, it is not permissible if he said: "Take this money and trade with it. Whatever profit is obtained, half is yours and half is mine, and whatever loss occurs, half is on you and half is on me." This is not permissible. That is, it is not permissible to stipulate any part of the loss on the worker. Rather, the entire loss is on the owner of the money. It is necessary to observe these matters that invalidate this transaction. If there is no impediment preventing its validity, then it is valid and there is no blame in it. Yes.

The questioner : May Allah bless you. He says in a question of his.