Imamate of a usurper

Question

An imam who had lived at a mosque for a long time filed a suit against five defendants [claiming] that these people sowed the mosque’s land held rent-free in return for service, or forcibly made the villagers sow it, and took my ploughs away from me. And he says that this land is not the mosque’s property as a rent-free service grant.

Answer

Whoever declares the mosque’s property to be his own, claims it as his own possession and wants to appropriate the mosque’s land is, according to the Shari‘a, a fasiq. Therefore, if another person better qualified than him for the imamate can be found, that person should be made imam. Appointing him as imam is makruh until he makes a firm repentance.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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