Income from hereditary and occupancy tenancy

Question

Question: What is the ruling of the scholars of religion regarding the use of the income from hereditary-tenancy cultivation (a tenant’s hereditary right to cultivate land) and occupancy tenancy (a settled occupant’s right to hold land)? For hereditary-tenancy cultivation is of two kinds: first, hereditary tenancy under the new law; second, the former hereditary tenancy, which has continued since the time of the government land settlement. Kindly favour us with a fatwa.

Answer

Of the income which cultivators obtain from land held in hereditary tenancy, it is permissible to keep as much as the cultivator spent on cultivation, and it is not permissible to keep the rest. This is the ruling on the income; and the ruling on the land is that he must give it up for the future, otherwise he will remain in oppression, sin and usurpation (ghasb)

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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