OUR DIALOGUE

Q. A friend of mine buys building sites. He may keep the site for a year or two, or even longer, then he would build a block of apartments, which he then sells. Is the land liable to zakah during the intervening period, before the building starts? If so, at what value?

A. This man is buying the land to carry out a building project, which is part of his business. He does so for the purpose of making profit. This is all legitimate, but it means that we should look at this whole exercise as a business venture. Should he get an offer for the land that gives him a decent profit, he would most probably sell it without building on it. As such, the land should be treated as a commercial commodity. In this case, it is zakahable every year, on the day when he pays his zakah. The zakah due on it is calculated on the basis of its value on that day.

This is one way of looking at the question. Another way is to treat the land and the building project as capital assets. These are not liable to zakah while they are used to generate income. Thus, when the man has built and starts selling, he pays zakah on each unit he sells, on the day he receives the price. In both cases, the rate is 2.5 percent. In this second method, he continues to pay zakah, on his total zakahable assets, on his normal zakah date.

Which way to choose? The answer depends on the personal circumstances of the individual concerned. If we are talking here about one who runs a flourishing business of buying land and building sites, and who is likely to be in possession of several sites, retaining some while others are being built and sold, then we should take the first option, considering all plots as commercial commodities and paying zakah annually at the current value of each plot. On the other hand, if it is a case of a small business, where the person concerned buys one plot at a time, and has to raise funds to start the building, then the second option may be the right one.

Q. A woman well advanced in age has died recently. Her parents, husband and children all died before her. She is survived by six grandsons, born to her two sons, and four half brothers and half sisters, born to her father. How is her estate shared out?

A. Here is a case where the direct line of inheritance goes directly to the second degree, because no heirs are present in the first one. The first degree includes the deceased’s parents and children. The woman is not survived by any of these. Hence, the second degree, which is her grandsons, becomes operative and the grandsons are her immediate heirs. In most cases, heirs in this direct line preclude all others. In this case, the grandsons preclude the half brothers and sisters.
They would also have precluded the woman’s full brothers and sisters, had any of these been alive. In short, only the woman’s grandsons inherit her. They divide the estate equally between them, since they relate to her in the same degree. No other relative has any share.

Q: What is the Islamic viewpoint about treatment towards Orphans?

A. Every orphan feels weak within the community because he has lost his father, who is supposed to bring him up well and protect him. His weakness, then, imposes a duty on the Muslim community, on the basis of the principle of mutual social solidarity, which is central to the Islamic social system. An orphan used to find himself in total loss in pre-Islamic Arabian society. The frequent and varied Qur’anic directives concerning the care that should be taken of orphans, and the stern warning occasionally added to these directives gives us an impression of how orphans used to be badly treated in society. This continued to be the case until God selected an honored orphan from that community to entrust him with the most noble of all tasks. He made that orphan, Muhammad (Pbuh), bearer of His final message to mankind. He also made taking proper care of orphans one of the practices encouraged by Islam, which gives its followers this kind of directive: “Do not touch the property of an orphan before he comes of age, except to improve it.”

Therefore, anyone who is looking after an orphan must not touch that orphan’s property except in a way, which is certain to bring a good return to the orphan. He must protect that property and try to improve it until the orphan comes of age and becomes physically and mentally able to receive his property and make good use of it. Thus, the community adds to its ranks a useful member who obtains his full rights.

Scholars have different view concerning the state when a person comes of age. According to Abd Al-Rahman ibn Zaid and Imam Malik, it signifies the attaining of puberty. According to Imam Abu Hanifah, a person comes of age when he is twenty-five. Scholars of Madinah set two criteria for that stage: attaining puberty and showing maturity. No particular age is specified.

Q. After 12 years of marriage, we remain childless. We have consulted medical experts and resorted to different ways of treatment, but we have come to the conclusion that God in His wisdom has made us of the type who do not have a child of their own. We, therefore, want to foster a child, bringing it up and giving it a comfortable life. However, the rules of the country where we live do not allow us to bring the child with us unless we show evidence that it is ours. Some people suggested to us to arrange for a fake birth certificate in which we give the child our family name. We are aware of the Islamic ruling on adoption and we do not wish to contravene it, but we have this stumbling block that practically ties up our hands, preventing us from doing what will be most gratifying to us and serving the interests of an orphan child. Please advise.

A. This is a problem of our modern times, for which you find no answer in any book of Islamic law. The reason is that it was not faced by scholars of olden times, when people travelled without having to carry passports or other documents. Today, if a couple travel with a child that has a different surname, they are required to show evidence that the child’s family permits its travel with them. Otherwise, they may be accused of kidnapping the child.

I have friends who were in a similar situation and came to the conclusion that they would not be having a child of their own. They used to visit some orphanages where they could help with child caring and give donations. On one such visit, the warden of the orphanage showed them a newcomer: a two-year-old girl who had just lost her grandmother, after having lost all her family in a car accident. She was brought to the orphanage by the grandmother’s neighbors, because the child had no relative who would look after her. They looked at the girl, talked to her and played with her for a while. The girl kept moving with the woman and held her hand. When it was time for the couple to leave, the girl would not let go of the woman’s hand.

They asked the warden if they could take her with them for a few days, and she agreed. By the next weekend, it was practically impossible for the couple and the girl to separate. The orphanage, the childcare authority in the country and the couple all agreed that it would be best for the child to be fostered by the couple. They took her home and arranged the proper official documents for the child to be placed in their care. They lived in a Muslim country where formal adoption is illegal. Yet the couple did not realize that they would soon be facing a difficult problem. The man worked for an international organization and was based in a country other than his own.

When it was time for his summer holiday and the couple wanted to travel, it was extremely difficult for them to have a passport issued for the girl. They did not know any relatives of the child, and no one was her official guardian. The couple could not be given such status because they were foreigners. They eventually managed to have an official permission to take her out of the country for one trip only. When they travelled to their home country, they considered the problem. By now, the girl was as close to them as a child can be to its parents. She had no one to care for her other than them. The choice was to give her back to the orphanage or to claim her as their own. They decided on the latter, and managed to have a passport issued to her in their own country, giving her their family name. They brought her back with them to her country, carrying a foreign passport. Since then, they had no problems with the authorities anywhere. However, they told the girl, at an early age, that she was not their offspring. All their family people are aware of that. Their friends know the fact.

Have they done wrong? From the Islamic point of view, there is nothing wrong with what they did, because at no time did they claim the child as their own. They simply had to violate some official rules that would have severely restricted their action and prevented a very good act of benevolence which Islam strongly encourages.

Having said that, we must remember that official rules in such matters are always well intended. They look to preventing abuse. Hence, they should be observed wherever possible. Only when they result in hardship that cannot be easily overcome one may look at a different option.

However, the overriding purpose should always be doing what is good, kind and approved by Islam. The issue is not the name. What Islam prohibits is to claim the child as one’s own, thus giving it a false status. This is not a question of official papers, such as a birth certificate and a passport; it is a question of how the child is presented to the world and how other people look at it. If you present the child as your own, claiming that it was born to your wife, then this is forbidden. If the facts are known to all around you and you are only dealing with difficulties that may stand in the child’s progress in life, such as its schooling and movement, then it is acceptable.

Q: In our world today, much is said about terrorism. Could you please explain which kinds of terrorism are condemned in Islam? Would it be terrorism if a group of people embrace Islam and buy a plot of land where they build a mosque and a school, despite a government ban? In such a case, are they allowed to fight against those who try to prevent them from doing so?

A. Terrorism is a word that has acquired a very loose meaning. Unfortunately, we do not have any definition of it, neither at the international nor at the popular level. When some Muslim countries called for a convention to be held on terrorism, objections were raised by the US and other governments, because such a convention would inevitably have to define terrorism, and perhaps include state terrorism which is practised by Israel and condoned by Israel’s friends who are never tired of speaking about their respect of human rights, but whose actions belie their statements.

If terrorism means an attack on civilian population, taking them unaware, and intending to cause damage and loss of life in order to promote certain aims and objectives, then Islam condemns such actions. The Prophet, (Pbuh) made it clear to the commanders of Muslim armies that they must never kill a woman, child, elderly person, priest or anyone who is not engaged in fighting them. Islam is not after scoring victories against enemies. It aims to make God’s message known to mankind and explain to them that it is a message of guidance that fulfils their aims and achieves their happiness when they implement it properly. Islam does not wish to kill anyone. It only fights those who wage a war against it, or kill its advocates. This has been the case throughout history.
The reader asks about a specific action probably in his own country. He has not explained the details of the situation. He simply cites one case of buying a piece of land in order to build a mosque and a school. This should be a very legal matter that a government should support. When the reader says that the government bans it, there must be something special about this case, which means that we cannot make a judgment on it. It is always the case that a ruling is given on the basis of the situation. If I were to give a judgment on the basis of the information supplied by the reader only, my judgment is bound to be erroneous. What is important to realise is that fighting in Islam is always undertaken against a well-identified enemy who is the aggressor. Islam is never the aggressor against any people, regardless of their beliefs. Some Muslims may be resorting to aggression, but that is their action, and Islam cannot support it.

Q: What is the ruling when a person goes back on a commitment made to God? Someone I know bought a laptop and committed himself to God that he would not use it to watch a movie. After a while, he broke this commitment and watched a movie using his laptop. What should he do?

A. A Muslim must always be true to his promises and commitments. Therefore, he should not make a commitment unless he feels able to honor it. A promise made to God has a greater claim to be fulfilled than one made to a fellow human being. No doubt this person felt at the time that he would be able to fulfill his commitment, but then at a point of weakness, he fell short of doing so. What he should do is to repent, pray God for forgiveness and resolve to honor his commitment in future. He must not feel that because he fell short once, he can go on doing so in future. One mistake does not justify a repeat.

What we are talking about here is the breaking of a clear commitment made to God. We are not discussing the question of watching a movie and the ruling concerning it. In as much as what is pledged to God is permissible, or halal, it must be adhered to. Had the pledged action been unacceptable from the Islamic point of view, it must not be done. If it is, it incurs a sin: while if it is abandoned, it earns reward. Sometimes people make an undertaking that is unnecessary, thus making things hard for themselves. Watching a movie is not forbidden in Islam, unless the movie itself produces negative results, or excites a person tempting him or her to do what is forbidden. Horror movies may have a very bad effect on some people, particularly young ones. Therefore, they are either forbidden or reprehensible to watch. Movies that have no such negative effects or influences are permissible.

Our friend who made this undertaking was no doubt motivated by a noble feeling that since God granted him the facility of owning a laptop, which might have been a dear wish of his, he felt that he should express his gratitude by using it only for serious purposes. This is fine, but he made an unnecessary undertaking which now he has no option but to fulfill.