What is the legal ruling on a kitchen rental contract made with a company for preparing and serving meals to workers residing in a property, where the rent was set at 20 dirhams per month per worker, with the possibility that no workers might reside there, thus resulting in no rent? Is the contract considered void due to uncertainty of the rent, or is it valid?

Renting a shop with a variable rent, which changes by increasing or decreasing the number of workers, is not permissible in Islamic law due to the uncertainty of the rent. This leads to the invalidity of the rental contract, as the uncertainty of the rent invalidates the lease.

If the contract is invalidated and the tenant has utilized the benefit, then he must pay the landlord the customary rent (Ujrat al-Mithl), not the agreed-upon rent.

If the tenant has not yet benefited from the shop, the contract can be rectified by agreeing upon a known and fixed rent, because one of the conditions for the validity of a lease is the certainty of the rent.