VOLUME THIRTY-ONE
FROM THE BOOK OF ENDOWMENTS TO THE BOOK OF MARRIAGE

In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Especially Merciful.

All praise belongs to Allah alone, and may blessings and peace be upon him after whom there is no prophet.

Shaykh al-Islām Ahmad ibn Taymiyyah—may Allah Most High have mercy on him—was asked:

A man leased a plot of orchard land from another man. The tenant then erected a structure resembling a mosque on the land and built a prayer niche in it. He told the landowner, “I have built this as a mosque, so do not charge me rent for it.” The landowner agreed. Subsequently, the landowner sold the orchard without excluding any part of it. Does this make that place a mosque or not?

If it does not thereby become a mosque, does the landowner’s refraining from collecting rent make it a mosque?

If it has not become [a mosque] and the entire orchard is sold, may the person who erected the mosque-like structure dismantle what he built?

He answered:

If it has not been dedicated to public use as mosques are, such that the five daily prayers held in mosques are performed there, it does not become a mosque merely through permission for the aforementioned construction. If there is no dedication to a pious purpose requiring its exclusion from the property sold, it is included in the sale. Merely beginning the process of making it a mosque does not make it a mosque.