sounder of the scholars’ two views. For the heir who inherits the right to use the property must pay the rent for the use he enjoys. Thus, if the deceased owed debts, the heir could not reserve that use for himself while treating the rent as a claim competing with those of the creditors, on the grounds that it is a debt owed by the deceased, like the purchase price owed under an effective sale.

This is comparable to the right of use passing to a purchaser or the recipient of a gift, as when someone sells the land, gives it away, or leaves it to be inherited. From the time of transfer, responsibility for the land falls upon the purchaser, the recipient of the gift, or the child, according to the sounder of the scholars’ two views. This is also the established practice among Muslims: they require the purchaser and the heir to pay the land rent in instalments, rather than demanding the entire rent from the seller or the deceased’s estate.

This is because entitlement to rent is not finally established until the corresponding use has been enjoyed. If that use becomes unavailable before it is enjoyed, the rent ceases to be due, by agreement. Hence, the position of Abū Hanīfah and others is that ownership of the rent is acquired not through the contract, but as the use is enjoyed, and the right to demand payment arises only progressively. For this reason, he held that the lease terminates upon death.

Although al-Shāfiʿī and Ahmad held that ownership of the rent is acquired through the contract, and that the right to demand it arises when the property itself is handed over, there is no dispute that liability for it arises only upon enjoyment of the use. Nor is there any dispute that it ceases to be due if the use becomes unavailable before it is enjoyed. Likewise, there is no dispute that, when payment is deferred, it cannot be demanded until the agreed due date.

Thus, if the heir provides a guarantor, yet payment that was not due until a later date is brought forward while his enjoyment of the use to which he is entitled remains deferred, this is an injustice to him, contrary to the justice that is