Chapter on Reviving Dead Land

Introduction

Mawāt—pronounced with an open mīm and a light wāw, following the pattern of saḥāb—literally denotes that which has no life. In legal usage it is land that has no owner. Its cultivation is likened to life, while its neglect is likened to death, for until dead land is worked—by farming or otherwise—it yields no benefit; to revive it is to develop it.

Technically, mawāt is land that is free of all private appurtenances and of the ownership of any inviolable person. Those appurtenances include roads, courtyards, open squares, watercourses, and everything that serves the interests of property already owned.

An inviolable person is either a Muslim or a non-Muslim who lawfully owns the land by purchase or some other legitimate means.

Accordingly, land that is already assigned or privately owned cannot be acquired merely by reviving it.

Shaykh ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Saʿdī said: “The jurists have set a criterion for what may be acquired through revival: the land that can be revived is that which is free of private appurtenances and of the ownership of protected persons.”

Thus included is every tract with no owner, that is not attached to existing property rights, and in which the public share no recognized claim. Excluded is whatever cannot be owned: land that is already held or that once belonged to a known inviolable owner is not acquired by revival, even if long disuse has left it barren; likewise anything that serves the needs of existing properties, such as what the residents of houses and towns require for the drainage of their water, the burial of their dead, the collection of their firewood, and the like. Also excluded is whatever people hold in common, such as flowing or surface-level mines,