Only first chapter of this book is attached below -- An alternative which COVERS most material in a COURSE -- UN Habitat Course of Islamic Land & Law
Sait, Siraj and Lim, Hilary (2006) Land, Law and Islam: Property and Human Rights in the Muslim World, London: Zed.
The concept of dual ownership [human being–God] is one of the special features of
the Islamic doctrine of economics. Islam protects and endorses the personal right to
own what one may freely gain, through legitimate means…. It is a sacred right.
Yet, human ownership is tempered by the understanding that everything, in the last
analysis, belongs to God…. What appears to be ownership is in fact a matter of
trusteeship, whereby we have temporary authority to handle and benefit from
property. (Abdul-Rauf 1984: 19)
Land, property and housing rights are generally cross-cultural and asserted within every socio-economic and political system, but the practice regarding their regulation and protection may take many forms. However, there has been little research on the complex and distinctive forms of land tenure and land rights found in Muslim societies, despite the fact that over 20 per cent of the world’s population is Muslim. Although there has been extensive literature generally on Islam and human rights, there has been very little focus on Islam and property rights. This book seeks to address this gap in the literature. Too often global reviews of land tenure and strategies fail to take into account Islamic principles and practices because they are assumed to be either nonexistent or irrelevant. By way of illustration, Hernando de Soto’s (2000) influential and best-selling work The Mystery of Capital, which predicates economic development and poverty alleviation upon the formalization and legal protection of land titles, does not explore Islamic conceptions of land, property and housing rights. His proposals for converting ‘dead capital’, by which he means informally owned property, into formally recognized property rights, through surveying, mapping, registration, monitoring, maintenance and facilitative mechanisms, have led to plaudits (Clinton 2001; USAID 2002), as well as critiques (Home and Lim 2004; Payne 2002) but are considered automatically applicable in the Muslim world. Though Egypt is on de Soto’s study list, he merely explores its symptomatic problems, particularly the bureaucratic delays in asserting property rights. The issues faced by Muslim countries, however, are far more complex than problems with red tape and apathy.
Islam is considered by Muslims to be a complete way of life, and property conceptions go far beyond theorization to impact on the lived experiences of Muslims. They also inform, to varying degrees, state policies and land rights discourse. Better understanding of, and engagement with, Islamic dimensions of land may potentially support land rights initiatives in Muslim societies, which have implications for programmes relating to land administration, land registration
urban planning and environmental sustainability. No generalization can be made about the extent to which Islamic dimensions may be relevant or appropriate to a particular context – that is for land professionals, policy makers, civil society and ultimately the people to determine. The fear of Islamizing the land discourse is exaggerated because Islam, as this research demonstrates, is never a stand-alone and there is a dynamic interplay between universalist, human rights, customary, informal and Islamic conceptualizations and applications.
Rather, the lack of engagement with the internal Islamic dialogue risks creating land systems that are bereft of authenticity and legitimacy and thereby of effectiveness and durability. Even where well-intentioned donor-driven efforts to establish modern land systems succeed, the obduracy of informal norms, practices and processes leads to unattended dualisms that undermine the prospect of integrated and unifying land policies.
This chapter provides an introduction to the context, methodology and scheme of this research, to distinctive conceptions of land tenure and rights in Islamic theory, as well as to key economic principles promoting private ownership and their present and potential role in promoting access to land. Furthermore, it outlines the application of Islamic perspectives on land registration, urban planning and environmental sustainability.
Text attached below is JUST CHAPTER ONE of the book. For a UN Habitat Course which COVERS ALL CHAPTERS of Sait & Lim