can we authorize him to take the purchaser’s property?! However, the sounder view in this issue is that he does have the right of pre-emption; that is, the partner whose share is an endowment may exercise pre-emption. This is because the effective cause established where ownership is unrestricted also exists where it is an endowment. Indeed, the effective cause is even clearer in the case of an endowment, for the beneficiary cannot rid himself of this endowment. If it were unrestricted property and he found the new partner to be difficult in his dealings, he could simply sell his share and be done with it. Thus, pre-emption in an endowment partnership is more warranted than in a partnership involving unrestricted property, because the harm suffered by the partner in an endowment is greater than that suffered by the owner of unrestricted property.
As for their claim that his ownership is incomplete, it may be said: it is complete in the sense that the beneficiary owns the endowment. Even according to the companions [i.e., the Hanbali jurists], they said that the endowment is owned by its beneficiary, though it is a restricted form of ownership.
If he has the right of pre-emption and exercises it, will this share become attached to the endowment, or will it become the beneficiary’s own property? The latter: it becomes the unrestricted property of the beneficiary, unless he intends it to be attached to the endowment, in which case it becomes attached to the endowment. We then ask: is it preferable for him to intend it for the endowment, or to retain it as his own property? This depends on what serves the greater interest. If the endowment has abundant revenue sufficient to bear the price of this share, then it is preferable to make it part of the endowment, so that the endowment may grow and increase, and so that no dispute may arise when the beneficiary dies. For when the beneficiary dies, the endowment does not pass by inheritance; rather, it passes according to the condition stipulated by the endower.
If someone were to say: If it becomes his own property, then the partnership has gained nothing, because the ownership now does not have a single designated beneficiary?