especially here in Egypt, where injustice is more prevalent than in Syria and the Maghrib. This includes people wronging one another in their dealings through dishonesty, fraud, and denial of others’ rights; the widespread wrongdoing of highway robbers, peasants, and Bedouins; and the many unjust exactions imposed by those in authority. It would therefore be more appropriate to attribute the unlawfulness to these matters than to the spoils of war.

The second point is that we have already discussed the jurists’ positions concerning those spoils and explained that the correct view is that, if the ruler permits people to take from them without a formal division, this is permissible. Where this is not permissible, anyone who takes the amount of his rightful share may do so. Anyone who takes more than his share and cannot return the excess to its rightful owners because their identities are unknown must give it in charity on their behalf. Even if he does not give it in charity on their behalf but disposes of it otherwise, whenever any of it reaches someone unaware of its circumstances, it is not unlawful for that recipient, nor does he incur any sin concerning it. This ruling also applies to all the aforementioned forms of usurped property.

What we have explained makes clear that someone who hires out his services, animals, real estate, or other belongings and receives a price or fee is not forbidden to accept it. This applies whether he knows that the price or fee lawfully belongs to its owner or does not know the owner’s circumstances because they are undisclosed. If, however, he knows that the payer usurped those dirhams, stole them, or acquired them in a manner that did not entitle him to take them, he may not accept them in payment of the price or fee owed to him. Nevertheless, the jurists disagree on this issue, and this paper is too brief to set out their disagreement in detail.