The Oppressions of a Mutawalli

Question

In our village of Sultanpur Kanari there is a Friday (jami‘) mosque. Behind this mosque a portion lay empty. To enlarge the mosque, a section was built on this empty portion, but only its walls had been completed; they had not been able to put a roof on it when the work stopped. The reason the work stopped was that the brother of Munshi (scribe) Nur al-Hasan, who held the mosque’s money, ran off with that money; about 18 years have passed, and that section still lies as it was.

Answer

A mosque is waqf and the house of Allah; it is not the property of anyone else. Claiming ownership of it is wrong, and it will not become someone’s property by his claiming it. The one who is mutawalli is a trustee (amin), not an owner.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

Preview. The full text opens with JavaScript enabled.