or someone unable to safeguard it, when he could have avoided doing so, then he has been negligent and is liable. As for a custodian who does not know that the property in his possession is a deposit held in trust, scholars within Ahmad’s school and elsewhere hold two views concerning his liability. The stronger view is that he bears no liability.

Any financial charges imposed on account of the jointly owned property, whether unjustly or otherwise, must be borne by the property as a whole, not by any particular share alone. If someone forcibly takes the deposited property, the overseer who deposited it may demand its return from him. The depositor may also pursue this claim in the custodian’s absence. As for the rightful owner, he may pursue a claim against the usurper, or against the overseer or custodian if there has been negligence on his part. Without negligence or wrongful conduct, however, he has no claim against the latter two.

If this custodian dies and the fate of the deposited property is unknown—whether it was taken from him, he took it himself, or it was lost—it constitutes a debt payable from his estate according to the great majority of scholars, including Abū Hanīfah, Mālik, and Ahmad. This is also the apparent purport of al-Shāfiʿī’s own statement and one of the two opinions within his school.

If it constitutes a debt owed by him, it must be repaid from his property. If he has property other than the endowment, it must be repaid from that. If he has no property other than the endowment, the status of the endowment in the case of a debtor whose debts exhaust his assets is a well-known point of disagreement among the scholars.