The Quran promises rewards for believers who participate in warfare against the enemies of God. It also demands voluntary gifts for “the poor,” meaning in particular those believers who wish to join the army but lack the means for doing so. Under the Rashidun and Umayyad caliphates, there was disagreement over how to include these “Quranic gifts” within newly-emerging fiscal and military institutions and practices. Among the jurists, it was the Medinans or early Malikis who remained most attached to the memory of the old “Quranic gift.” This can be seen in their teachings regarding ja‘a’il, or military substitution (a kind of organized draft-dodging), which I have discussed previously. In this paper I examine an array of Medinan/early Maliki sources regarding the law of war and gifts. Here, especially in the Mudawwana attributed to Sahnun, we find several striking and (apparently) unusual teachings. We also find the idea that revenues from conquest (fay’) must be distributed according to a principle of equity among individuals or, alternatively, according to a principle of equity among regions; either way, the Quranic right (haqq) of the poor Muslim is paramount and dominates (at least in theory) the construction of military and fiscal institutions. In the later doctrines of the Maliki school, these distinctive teachings were blurred, sidestepped, or made to look more like the doctrines of the Hanafi and other madhhabs. However, they had consequences for later developments, especially in North Africa under the Aghlabid amirate.