As for whether customary remuneration is due to the person who salvaged it, scholars hold two views. The sounder view is that remuneration is due. This is expressly stated by Ahmad and others, for the rescuer acts voluntarily.

The proponents of this view say:

If they salvaged it for the sake of Allah Most High, their reward rests with Allah Most High. If they salvaged it in return for compensation, they are entitled to compensation. Otherwise, property would be lost, since people would not rescue it from destruction if they knew that they would gain nothing by doing so. Regarding someone who purchased Muslims’ property from the unbelievers, the Companions ruled that its owner could recover it from the purchaser upon paying the purchase price, because that was the price he had paid to rescue it.

Moreover, this property would have been destroyed had this person not recovered it. Rescuing it is a permissible act involving no disobedience. Thus, when the property is recovered through one person’s labour, while the original property belongs to another, it is to be shared between them. However, a particular individual cannot be compelled to enter into joint ownership, so customary remuneration becomes due.

Furthermore, such work is authorized by customary practice: people ordinarily seek someone to salvage such property for them in return for payment. A contract of hire may be established by customary practice, as when someone enters a bathhouse or travels aboard a ship without expressly agreeing on terms, or hands food over to a cook and a washer without expressly agreeing on terms. There are numerous similar examples.

If the property were an animal and someone rescued it from mortal danger, he would acquire ownership of it, as stated in the transmitted report. This is because an animal has inviolability in its own right, unlike goods, whose inviolability derives from that of their owner. In the former case, the rescue is undertaken to uphold the animal’s own right, and its owner may have given up hope of it while it was in mortal danger;