Liability of craftsmen (the common hired worker)

The liability of craftsmen is a question about the hired worker who works for the public, such as the tailor, fuller, dyer, washer, goldsmith and weaver: if goods are lost with him without his fault, is he liable? It is the first question al-Shafi'i gives in the Disagreement of the Iraqis in al-Umm. ¹

Al-Shafi'i says that those who make the worker liable draw an analogy from a loan for use, which is guaranteed, and objects that the borrower is permitted to benefit from the thing itself without payment, while the craftsman is not permitted to use the goods, his benefit being only in the work he does on them; he adds that one who hires an animal and uses it for payment is not liable if it perishes in his hands. ² He says that if craftsmen are made liable, everyone who takes a wage for something must be, since what one is paid for is either guaranteed, and so guaranteed in every case, or not guaranteed, and so never. ²

Al-Shafi'i relates that Ali held the washer and dyer liable, saying that nothing else would set people right, and says this "is narrated by a route whose like the hadith scholars do not accept", that what is narrated from Umar on holding some craftsmen liable comes by a weaker route, and that he knows neither to be established. ² The editor notes that al-Shafi'i's report from Ali is mursal, since Muhammad ibn Ali did not meet his grandfather, and traces Abu Hanifa's report from Ali to Muhammad ibn al-Hasan's al-Athar, and other reports to the Musannafs of Abd al-Razzaq and Ibn Abi Shayba. ^{1 2}