Building Shops in the Mosque Courtyard for the Protection and Preservation of the Mosque

Question

Part of the unpaved eastern courtyard of the Gulzar Shah mosque, which was used for taking off shoes, was paved with stones long before Partition (1947) and joined to the floor of the mosque. The mosque is surrounded on all four sides by a non-Muslim population, and no Muslim lives in the vicinity at present either. Because the mosque has no income, there is no arrangement even for light and water; there are no mats for the rows, no muezzin and no imam.

Answer

A portion of land that has once become a mosque remains a mosque forever; it is not correct to take it out of the mosque and build a shop or the like. If including the place for taking off shoes, which was not part of the mosque, into the paved floor was not done with the permission of the waqif (endower)

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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