Maimonides and the Merchants. Mark R. Cohen

employs when adding something new that is analogous. The commentator Kesef Mishneh (Joseph Caro) wondered why Maimonides added it at all, since it was self-evident: if all the money was tied up in the first partnership, the active partner should have nothing to invest in another business deal. If, on the other hand, he possessed money of his own, either the loan portion of the first partnership or other moneys, it was obvious that he would be responsible for both gain and loss resulting from any partnership that he formed with a third party.

      A simple solution presents itself if we assume that Maimonides added the statement about partnership with a third party (because such multiplication of partnerships, a measure to limit risks in long-distance trade, was entirely common among merchants in his day but not in the time of the Talmud) and that he wished to incorporate it into the halakha. Forming an additional partnership with another person using money from the initial partnership is discussed in Islamic law and disallowed in one type of Islamic partnership, called ‘inān.²³