—even if he possesses ṣukūk istihkām (official title deeds); rather, it remains uncultivated wasteland in keeping with its original status.
9 – When a person revives land by any Sharīʿah-approved method, he acquires its adjuncts and utilities—roads, market squares, open yards, watercourses, and the like.
10 – If the revived land, whether for cultivation or residence, is completely surrounded on every side by property belonging to others, it has no reserved buffer zone and no exclusive utilities; instead, each of the adjoining owners benefits within his own property according to local custom.
11 – Al-Iqnaʿ states: “Land that lies close to inhabited property and is connected to its interests cannot be acquired through revival, such as its roads, frontage, communal meeting place, drainage channel, refuse dump, soil-deposit site, pasture, woodlot, the protective strip of a well, the horse-training ground, the cemetery, the lodgings prepared for travellers, the sites set aside for the ʿĪd prayer, and the like. Whatever is already owned may not have the land tied to its utilities revived by another.”
Shaykh Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm said: “If the runoff of a tract of land flows onto property that is already owned, the channel of that runoff follows the owned land as an exclusive right; therefore it is impermissible to revive it or to grant it to anyone other than the owners of that land without their permission.”
12 – Taḥajjūr (staking out land) does not confer ownership; it merely gives the person a right of preference, so no one else may revive it. Forms of taḥajjūr include:
• enclosing the land with a wall that is not solid, or building a wall on only some sides;
• surrounding the land with fencing, a trench, or an earthen embankment, and the like;
• digging a well without reaching the water table.
13 – All of these and similar practices are acts of taḥajjūr; they do not establish ownership, but they do give the one who staked the claim a right of special use and precedence over others. Hence no one who wishes to revive the land may encroach upon it while it is in that person’s possession; and if someone eager to revive it appears, the ruler shall set for him