With the abolition of the landlord system the cultivator was made owner of the land: is this valid? With the fatwa of Hakim al-Umma ﵀

Question

Question: Before 1947, when there was English rule in India and the partition with Pakistan had not yet taken place, the British government had this law regarding lands: when a landlord gave his land to a tenant cultivator on lease (ijara) or in sharecropping (muzaraʿa) and the land remained with the cultivator for twelve years, that cultivator himself was made the owner of the land, and the owner of the land, i.e. the landlord, was left with no right in it. Such a cultivator is called a “hereditary tenant”.

Answer

Under English rule no one was compelled into hereditary tenancy; only a right was given: if the cultivator had relinquished it, the landlord’s ownership would have remained intact. So it was as if he had been given a right of usurpation (ghasb); had he not usurped, the ownership and possession of the original owner would have remained.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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