Buying Graveyard Land with Mosque Money

Question

There is a vacant piece of land whose owner was a Hindu; on some parts of this land Muslims have maintained a graveyard for about a hundred years. Then a Muslim bought this land from that Hindu but kept the graveyard as it was. After that, because the land is near the mosque, the respected mutawalli (trustee) of the mosque, in consultation with a few men of the village, bought it with the mosque’s money in the name of the mosque, with the intention that the graveyard would remain.

Answer

Whatever amount of the mosque’s money was spent on buying this land, all the Muslims should collect that amount as donations and give it to the mosque, and keep this land as a graveyard. There is no right to buy land for a graveyard with the mosque’s money; therefore it is necessary that the mosque’s money be recovered.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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