Islam's Reformers .pdf

The duty of the Islamic state is to protect the property, lifeand chastity of the people, to get back the rights of theoppressed from the cruel. The government can never violatethe property, life and chastity of the people.54 - Again in the book World’s Peace and Islam, SayyidQutb wrote:“Personal property cannot be made from plunder, robbery,usurpation, theft, bribes, deceit, interest, profiteering or wayswhich cause them. The state may add it to its treasury, wholelyor partly, whenever it wants. Historical examples indicate thatthe state has been given this right entirely.”He is wrong once again. It is true that such unjust earningscannot be halâl. The state has to get them back, not wheneverit wants but immediately. But what the state takes back cannotbe its own. It should transfer them to their owners. The duty ofthe state is to get the oppressed person’s due from the cruelone. If the state, instead of giving them to the oppressed, addsthem to its treasury, the state is cruel, too. In the section aboutgiving salary to women from the Bayt al-mâl in the fifth volumeof Radd al-muhtâr, Ibn Âbidîn wrote: “Property obtained in aharâm way, for example, that which is usurped, should bereturned to its owner. Such property cannot be Bayt al-mâl’s. Itcannot be common property for all Muslims, either.” Propertyexpropriated illegally from the people, i.e. the usurped property,cannot be owned by the state. It should be returned to its owneror, if the owner is dead, to the inheritors. If the owner isunknown, it should be dispensed to the poor. It is harâm forthose who know the owner to get or use it.If a person, though he knows its owner, does not return theproperty harâm for him, and if he expects to be rewarded in thenext world for using it in a charitable deed such as building amosque or giving alms, he becomes an unbeliever. And ifothers who know that the property was harâm for him say thathe has earned thawâb, they also become unbelievers, for it isfard for him to give this property or, if it has been spoilt, itsmatch or, if it does not have a match, its cost to its owner or tohis inheritors, or, if he cannot find them, to dispense it to thepoor with the intention that its thawâb be given to them. It isharâm to use it for something else. It is harâm for others also tobuy (or accept as a gift, alms, etc.) and use this property if theyknow that it is harâm.- 217 -