build a bridge across it or dig a trench beneath it, for the land is his—down to the lowest depths and up to the highest heaven; it is all his. Yet if, on the Day of Resurrection, a person is found to have carved off even a single handspan of land without right, he will appear that Day with it fastened around his neck. We ask Allah for safety.

All creatures, everyone agrees, will be gathered on the Day of Resurrection. Even the beasts will be assembled—camels, cattle, sheep, every one of them. In that gathering this man will be seen carrying the very land he stole—Allah’s refuge is sought—consisting of the seven earths.

For this reason the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “Allah has cursed anyone who alters the boundary markers of the land.” Altering the markers means tampering with the survey lines so as to annex what is not his. This hadith shows that encroaching upon land or seizing anything unlawfully is among the major sins, because it incurs this grave threat: the divine curse and being made to carry the stolen land on the Day of Resurrection.

What, then, of people today who appropriate miles—indeed miles upon miles—without any right, squeezing the Muslims’ grazing lands and depriving them of their pastures, roadways, and the like? Such people will have to bear whatever they took on the Day of Resurrection, Allah’s refuge is sought, because they seized it unjustly. Pastures belong to the Muslims as a whole; so do the public roads and the rainwater channels.

Accordingly the scholars have said: a person does not gain ownership by reviving (ihyāʾ) any land that lies close to an inhabited area when that land serves the community’s interests. Even if he cultivates it or plants trees there, his trees will be uprooted and his buildings torn down if public welfare requires it. The town is not the property of this person or that; it belongs to the Muslims collectively—even if, hypothetically, the ruler were to grant it to someone