Khums: Can Authorities Expel Inherited Owners from Endowed Forest Land?

Practical Laws of Islam as per the teachings of Imam Khamenei

Khums: Can Authorities Expel Inherited Owners from Endowed Forest Land?

English:

Question #1039:

We are livestock owners and graze our herd in a forest. We have been practicing this job for more than fifty years and hold a legal document of ownership to this forest through inheritance. Besides, this forest is also an endowment for the Commander of the faithful Imam Ali, the Master of Martyrs Imam Ḥusayn, and Abulfaḍl al-Abbās (a.). In this forest livestock owners led a life of ease and comfort for many years and have residential houses, agricultural lands, and gardens. Recently, the foresters have decided to expel us from this forest and take it over. Do they have the right to do so or not?

Answer #1039:

The validity of endowment, as per Islamic law, depends upon the precedence of shar‘ī ownership — similarly transfer through inheritance depends on the testator’s shar‘ī ownership — and forests or pastures never owned by any individual, never cultivated and never constructed upon are not considered the private property of anyone. Thus, their endowment is not correct and they cannot be inherited. In any case, any portion of the forest that is developed – with the religious and legal permission - in the form of a farm, home, and the like, and is owned in accordance with shar‘, its shar‘ī trustee has the right to make use of it if it is an endowment , and its owner if it is not an endowment. And the rest of the forests and pastures, which remain in a natural form, belong to anfāl and public properties and, according to law, their affairs are decided by the Islamic state.

-Imam Khamenei, Practical Laws of Islam, Importance and Conditions of Khums