Owning land in excess of 75 bighas and its seizure by others

Question

Question: Nowadays there is a government law that no one may hold land in excess of 75 bighas (a local unit of land area), although before this law a person had bought, with his own money, land in excess of 75 bighas. In this case, may one forcibly cut off 75 bighas of (his) land or not? Will this act be lawful (halal) for the common people or not? And what is (this) law like?

Answer

What a person has sown there, on his own land, belongs to the one who sowed it; without the owner’s permission no one else has the right to cut it — rather, doing so is ghasb (usurpation) and oppression. Nor is the purport of the law that whoever has land in excess of 75 bighas, anyone who wishes may cut the crop he has sown.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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