whereas Mutarrif, Ibn al-Mājishūn and Sahnūn said, “He may prevent people from fishing in them.” Ashhab is reported to have distinguished between fish that bred there in the water and fish descended from others that the landowner himself had introduced into the pools.

There are also two opinions concerning timber floated down rivers that cannot pass without breaching dams: may its owners breach the dams and take their timber through, or not? Husayn ibn ‘Āsim’s transmission in the Book of Dams and Rivers in al-‘Utbiyya states that they may do so. Sahnūn transmitted the same ruling from Ibn al-Qāsim in a source other than al-‘Utbiyya.

Muhammad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Dīnār al-Madanī received a letter from al-Andalus asking about timber “felled here in our country, in the Maghrib, and cast into the river. Sometimes it reaches dams whose owners prevent the timber owners from breaching them, although they would restore them to their former condition.” He replied:

“If breaching the dam harms its owners, I do not consider that they should breach any part of it. But if it does not harm them, and they restore it, with no fear of any adverse change to it resulting from the timber owner’s breach after they have repaired it, then I consider that they should not be prevented from breaching the dams they encounter, subject to what I have explained to you.”

And Allah grants success.