Who Is Liable for a Theft from a Mosque’s Room

Question

Copper utensils weighing nearly one quintal were stolen from a mosque in circumstances where there was no lock of any kind on the main gate, nor was any guard appointed to protect the mosque. However, the place in which the utensils were kept did have a lock, which the thieves easily broke and took out the utensils. In such a case, does any fault attach to the mutawalli (custodian) of the mosque for not providing reasonable protection or not? If fault attaches, what would be the way of making amends?

Answer

As a rule, no lock is put on the main gate of mosques, so that anyone, whenever he wishes, may come to the mosque and worship; moreover, a guard is not appointed in every mosque either — rather, at prayer times the muezzin comes, cleans the mosque, and lays out the prayer rows.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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