The fruit of a usurped tree

Question

Question: A tree belongs to one person. Another person had that land made his own cultivated holding; by the government’s law that tree too became the property of the tenant cultivator, and the one who planted the tree was completely deprived of it. Can it be permissible for this usurping cultivator to consume the tree or the tree’s fruit, or not?

Answer

Since that land does not belong to this cultivator, the land is usurped and the tree is usurped as well; deriving benefit from either is impermissible. Ownership is not established by wrongful proceedings.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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