Jurisprudential and Legal Analysis of Wujuh Partnership from the Perspective of Jurisprudence of Islamic Schools of Thought

Based on the type and combination of raised capital, Partnership has been divided into four types of ‘Inan, A‘mal, Wujuh and Mufawadhah. Opinions differ greatly over the validity or invalidity of these types of partnership. Analyzing Islamic books reveal that disputes over A‘mal and Mufawadhah partnership are more conspicuous. This controversy among Islamic jurists has made its way into the legal books as well. The most important reasons expressed by proponents of the validity of Wujuh partnership is related to the existence of some Hadiths, silence-based consensus, the special concern of Islam for cooperation and the nature of this partnership being a mixture of mandate and bail contracts. Instead, the opponents point out the incompatibility with public policy and morality, uncertainty, consensus, lack of Shariah-based evidence in support of the validity of this partnership and consensus. Putting emphasis on Shiite writings and taking a glance at Hanafi, Hanbali, Maliki and Shafi‘i works and analyzing the reasons expressed by the proponents and opponents, this article seeks firstly to define Wujuh partnership and its various types, and reaches this conclusion that Wujuh partnership, in its common concept, is null and void in Shiite and current Iranian law accordingly.