the purchaser. If the partner takes it by pre-emption, the gift is invalidated. May the donee then claim from the donor the value of this gift?
The answer is: No, he may not claim it from him. For when the partner takes it by pre-emption, the ruling takes effect retroactively to before the gift, so that the gift is found to have concerned something owned by someone other than the donor.
Therefore, we say that the sounder view in this matter is that if the purchaser disposes of it by gifting it, endowing it, making it a dowry, or the like, the pre-emptor may exercise his right of pre-emption.
In the case of a gift or an endowment, the donee or the beneficiary of the endowment has no right of recourse against the donor or the endower. But if the husband makes it a dowry, and we adopt the sounder view—that the partner may exercise pre-emption—and he does so, its status as a dowry is invalidated. However, the share is appraised, and she is given its appraised value.
If someone were to say: “Should she not instead return to the price for which her husband gave her the share as dowry?”
The answer is: No, because the price may involve favoritism by the seller, making it less than the market value; or it may involve favoritism by the purchaser, making it more than the market value.
But if he disposes of it through a transfer of ownership by a means that itself initially establishes a right of pre-emption, then this is what the author, may Allah have mercy on him, mentioned in his statement:
“Should he sell it, the pre-emptor may take it on the basis of either sale. The purchaser is entitled to the yield, any separable increase, the crops, and visible fruit. If he builds or plants, the pre-emptor may either acquire it at its value or have it removed, while compensating for the resulting diminution in value. Its owner may take it away provided that no harm results.”
His statement, “Should he sell it, the pre-emptor may take it on the basis of either sale,” means: if the purchaser disposes of it by selling it to another person, then “he”—that is, the pre-emptor, who is the original partner—may “take it,” meaning, take the share, “on the basis of either of the two sales.”