funds toward the welfare of the Muslims (1)—such as securing the frontier defenses, maintaining the fighting forces, and similar purposes—is a form of cooperation in righteousness and piety. The governing authority is obliged, if the owners of these funds cannot be identified and the funds cannot be returned to them or their heirs, to direct them toward the welfare of the Muslims, while repenting if he himself was the wrongdoer.
This is the position of the majority of scholars, including Mālik, Abū Hanīfa, and Ahmad. It is also reported from more than one of the Companions, and the evidence (2) of the Sacred Law supports it, as explained at length elsewhere (3).
If someone else took the funds, then that person must likewise deal with them in this manner (4). Similarly, if the governing authority refuses to return them, assisting in spending them for the benefit of those entitled to them (5) is better than leaving them in his hands or those of someone (6) who would deprive their owners and the Muslims of them (7).
(1) This is absent from the original manuscript and L.
(2) Y and Z read: “the proofs.”
(3) The passage from “This is the position” to this point is omitted from F, Z, B, and K.
(4) Z and B read: “that.”
(5) The other manuscripts read: “their owners.”
(6) The other manuscripts read: “in the hands of someone who.”
(7) The author wrote a treatise on assets whose owners are unknown and how they must be disposed of; see Majmūʿ al-Fatāwā, 28:592 ff. There he discusses the scholarly positions regarding this type of property and responds to those who maintain that it should be retained rather than disbursed:
“This is tantamount to destroying it, for destruction is forbidden precisely because it prevents people from benefiting from it, and retaining it does the same. Indeed, retention is worse in two respects. First, it causes people suffering by withholding something they need and allowing no one to benefit from it.
“Second, the usual course of events is that property of this sort will inevitably be seized by some oppressor if people of justice and truth do not spend it. Retaining it therefore assists the oppressors and, in reality, hands it over to them. It thus denies it to the people of truth and gives it to the people of falsehood. There is no distinction here between intending this and not intending it. Whoever places a person among predatory beasts has killed him; whoever throws meat among predatory beasts has, in effect, consumed it himself; and whoever retains vast sums for oppressors to seize has given those sums to them.
“Since destroying such property is forbidden, while retaining it is worse than destroying it, it must be spent. It has no specifically designated object of expenditure, so it should be spent on every righteous and pious cause through which nearness to Allah is sought. Allah created people to worship Him and created wealth for them to use in His worship; it should therefore be spent in the cause of Allah.” [End quote.]