An additional significant source of information on this culturally oriented question is the Arabic commentary on Luke by Dr. Ibrāhīm Sa‘īd of Cairo.35 Commenting on Luke 16:2, Sa‘īd writes, Thus the owner requested his manager to present to him the contracts signed by the farmers and countersigned by the manager, in order to show how much was owing to the owner by each partner from the produce of his fields.36 Sa‘īd clearly assumed that the debtors were renters and that the setting was that of an