Land Grants
Its Definition
The land grant is that the ruler (i.e., authority) grants a piece of public land to someone that is not owned by anyone. This piece of land can be used for agriculture, planting trees, constructing buildings, private use or sale.
Its Ruling
Giving land grants is permissible for the Muslim Ruler and no one else. For the Prophet (SAW) granted land, and after him Abu Bakr, ‘Umar and others besides them did the same. [1]
Its Regulations
1) Only the Muslim ruler can grant a piece of land. This is because no one else has the authority to grant such a piece of public land other than him.
2) Whoever grants such land should not grant more than what one can cultivate and revive of it.
3) If the Muslim ruler grants a piece of uncultivated land to someone and he is unable to cultivate it, the ruler should request him to return it in order to preserve its use and benefit for the public welfare.
4) The Muslim ruler can reserve and grant such space in the marketplaces, wide open areas, and wide streets, as long as this does not cause any harm to the public. However, in either case, the user of the land would not be its real owner. Rather, he only has more right to it than others. This is due to the Messenger of Allah’s statement:
“Whoever reached something that none of the Muslims has preceded him to, he has more right to it.” (Abu Dawud and it was graded Sahih by Adh-Dhiya’ in Al-Mukhtarah)
5) If the ruler grants anyone a place or someone reaches a place first without it being granted by the ruler, he should not cause harm to others. For example, he should not put-up veils in order to block out the light or make barriers between buyers and sellers in order to hide others’ merchandise for sale so that he can exhibit his own commodities only. The Messenger of Allah (SAW) said:
“Do not hurt anyone and do not allow anyone to hurt you.”
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[1] The Hadith that is being referred to concerning the Prophet (SAW) was collected by Al-Bukhari and Muslim. Its wording states, “I used to carry seed kernels on my head from a piece of land that the Messenger of Allah (SAW) had granted to Az-Zubayr and its distance was two-thirds of a Farsakh (i.e. approximately 2 miles) from me.” The speaker in this narration is Asma’ bint Abu Bakr, the wife of Az-Zubayr.