398 chapter nine
a statutory ownership to the given land, it simply gives him only the
right to utilise. Following the same line of thinking with regard to
neglected sources of production, al-Sadr emphatically argues that the
right of the holder of iqta"is only the right to utilise. Hence he is
acting on behalf of the giver i.e. the state. Therefore, the form of
Islamic iqta"may be permissible and the state may grant a means
of production, land or another natural resource such as mines, to peo-
ple to utilise. But the statutory ownership remains, he argues, with
the state, or the imam. It follows that, the holder, once more, is a
quasi-owner, and this quasi-ownership continues with the provision
that (a) the holder is utilising the property, (b) in accordance with
the state’s regulations, and (c) the state is given its share of the eco-
nomic outcome. “Iqta", therefore, is not a process of a transfer of
ownership, it is, instead, a right given by the imam(the state) to an
individual giving him the priority to utilise a well-defined property
in accordance to his readiness and capability” (al-Sadr, 1982, p. 459).
Needless to say, the inference of the al-Sadr argument, suggests that
the state’s share of output is not a substitute to the tax that may be
due on the holder’s share, it is over and above what the state may
impose through taxes in parallel to other subjects and economic
activities.
It is worth noting that al-Sadr’s views on the ownership of the
land of qata"i were in sharp contrast to those of Abù-Yùsùf. In his
book, Kitab al-Kharàj, we saw how Abù-Yùsùf maintained that the
transfer of ownership should be regarded as full ownership and should
be made final without recourse from the caliph, or the ruler. The
full ownership would grant the right to transfer the ownership by
sale or inheritance. Abù-Yùsùf went even further in stressing that
annulling the ownership by the same caliph or those who would
come after him and taking back the land from the holder would be
like robbing someone and giving the stolen property to someone else.
Abù-Yùsuf probably had in mind the need for the economic stabil-
ity and constancy of transactions more than a possible concern over
the conceptual basis of ownership. This was particularly the case as
he provided support to his views from the practice of the Prophet,
albeit that the Prophet’s practice was on a comparatively minor scale
compared with that of the land of qata"iduring the dynastic caliphates.
Al-Sadr, on the other hand, stressed the conceptual, and in his views
the rightful, basis of ownership over the practicality of the pragmatic
Hanafijudge Abù-Yùsùf.