Aslam

OWNERSHIP OF LAND: Only God is the permanent owner of lands, as everything in heaven and earth belongs to Him. So declares the Quran. How can a servant of God become the owner of a iand when he cannot keep himself under his control but his master controls him? It is true that every man has got necessity for food and the earth is the dinning cloth of God. The people have been ordered to eat what is absolutely necessary for them from the foods served on this dining cloth out of the food-stuffs grown by God in the earth. The king has spread dining cloth of food for his servants. If a servant takes a morsel of food out of it and if another snatches it away from him, it is not allowed. The reason is not that the former has become owner of the morsel as the hand which catches it and the person possessing the hand are both servants, but when he has got necessity of a morsel of food, he becomes possessor of it. This is justice. Its peculiarity is first possession. This is true in case of all servants of God. No servant has got any right to possess what is not necessary for his livelihood. So it is true that he who amasses and hoards wealth for long or hoards up food stuffs beyond his necessity is an oppressor and belongs to those persons who are condemned by God in the following verse : Those who hoard up gold and silver and do not spend in the way of God. Give them news of grievous chastisement. Way of God means performance of duties towards God which means spending wealth for the servants of God who are in need and wants. To hoard up food-stuff, in godowns after snatching them from the needy people is a heinous offence. After meeting one's own necessity, the surplus wealth should be distributed among the needy and the destitutes. To this effect, the Quran says : They ask you about spending. Tell what is in excess.

86 PATIENCE AND GRATEFULNESS Vol-IV