owner. The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said concerning lost property: “If its owner comes, then [return it to him]; otherwise, it is yours to dispose of.” (1) In one wording of the hadith of Umar ibn al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him, it states: “that a slave woman should give birth to her master” (2), rather than “her mistress.” This usage is permissible and acceptable both in Sacred Law and in the Arabic language.

His statement, “If the pledged property collapses and he restores it without permission, he may recover only his materials”: if pledged property—such as a house—collapses, and the pledgee restores it, he may recover only his materials. In their terminology, “materials” means the substance used in the construction: that is, only what he put into it, such as mud bricks, iron, doors, and the like. He may therefore recover only these, not the wages of the workers, the cost of water, and the like. The difference between this and an animal is that an animal requires maintenance, whereas this does not.

For example, a man takes a house as security, and part of it collapses. He repairs it, bringing mud bricks, building materials, and doors, and rebuilding it. The building materials cost ten thousand riyals, while the workers’ wages and the cost of bringing water amount to another ten thousand riyals. How much may he recover?

The answer is: ten thousand riyals, which is the cost of the materials alone. As for the remainder, he may not recover it. This applies if he did not seek permission from the owner of the house, who is the pledgor. But if he sought his permission, then he may recover all of it, because he is acting as his agent.

Some scholars said, rather, that he may recover all of it, because it is unlike spending on an animal: when the animal consumes its feed, it is gone, and it does not