He—may Allah have mercy on him—was asked:

“A village has several mosques, some of which have fallen into ruin. Prayer is held in only one of them, and an endowment supports them all. Must the ruined mosques be restored and congregational prayer established in a second mosque? Is it permissible to close them?”

He replied:

“Yes, the mosque must be restored so that prayer can be held in it. Likewise, an imam must be appointed to another mosque when there is a benefit and a need for doing so. It is impermissible to close mosques to the purposes for which they were instituted. However, when the local population is small and one mosque suffices—for example, when they live around it—they are not required to divide their congregation among other mosques.”

He was also asked:

“Regarding the endowment of any group in which a member has died leaving a full brother and a child—scholars differ widely over cases of this kind—does his share go exclusively to the child or to the brother? Some people testified that, under the donor’s stipulation, it belongs exclusively to the child, not the brother, although they had not accurately ascertained the boundaries of the endowed property; indeed, they described some of its boundaries differently from what they actually are. Is it permissible for them to do this? And may the judge rule