Question
My question is about renting here in Palestine. People rent places for 5 Dinars which is about $7 a month. This was the rent maybe 40 or 50 or 60 years ago. If I rent a place and the owner said that my rent will be $5, but there's no written contract and there's no time specified, can I as a property owner demand possession of my property anytime or not? Here in Palestine, according to the system you pay that rent for the rest of your life and the life of your children and your grandchildren and so forth. The owner of the property basically no longer really owns it. He only gets $5 a month. Also, in the next scenario, if the rent was specified and the contract was for one year and it automatically just kept on renewing every year, can I just ask for possession of my property at any time I wish? In Palestine you basically have to beg those people to leave and in some cases they demand up to $300,000. Only then will they vacate the premises. The government here backs them. You are not allowed to tell him to leave or touch them or say anything to them. They basically become the 'owners' of your property. The government does use the excuse of lack of housing, but this is not so because the people who own these properties are willing to help these people move into other apartments and they are prepared to even spend money to help them. But their motive is to extort outrageous amounts of money from the owners. Furthermore, more than half of them, if not 75% of them, are able to move to other apartments and pay rent. There are plenty of apartments being built. For example one man has 4 apartments that he built. Two or three of the tenants are in fact in the United States with their children. They are earning much money, but they just insist on holding on to the apartment knowing that they will receive large amounts of money by hook or crook from the owner. Plus, the people who are renting refuse to pay a fair rent. I am talking about commercial and non-commercial. There are people who are renting commercial properties for 50 Dinars which is about $75 while the property is worth a million dollars. They conduct lucrative businesses and coining plenty money. Although they are able to pay the fair rental price, they refuse. So basically the excuse is that these people are living in a harsh time and that we cannot just throw people in the street but this is not really the case. It is a baseless excuse to perpetuate the system of extortion. Please comment.
Answer
The system in Palestine is zulm (injustice and oppression), and this is haraam. The authorities are aiding the usurpers in their criminal acts of usurpation of the properties of others. According to the Hadith, on the Day of Qiyaamah, the usurped property together with the entire land as far as it reaches into the bowels of the earth will be made into a weight and strung around the neck of the usurpers.
According to the Shariah, it is permissible for the owners to evict the unscrupulous tenants although the unscrupulous authorities will not allow it. They too will be joined with the usurpers on the Day of Qiyaamah to suffer the punishment.
The exorbitant amounts of money the tenants are demanding for returning the properties to the owners are haraam oppression. Every cent of the money paid to them is haraam. They are in reality ingesting the Fire of Jahannam into their bodies.
This vile oppression and injustice perpetrated by both the people of Palestine and the government are contributory for the Yahudi oppression in Palestine. Another contributory evil is the widespread debauchery to Allah's Law of Meeraath (Inheritance) which is a norm in Palestine. They oppress their own people in these villainous haraam ways, then they complain and lament about Israeli oppression.
In fact, Yahudi oppression is Allah's punishment for the people who have practically abandoned Islam. Kuffaar domination over Muslims is a form of Allah's punishment which is explicitly mentioned in the Qur'aan and Hadith. It is Allah's Sunnah. The Qur'aan states: "You will not find for the Sunnah of Allah a change."
Added to these acts and system of oppression and injustice, there is widespread prevalence of fisq and fujoor in Palestine just as these evils are prevalent in all Muslim countries and in all Muslim communities in non-Muslim countries. These are all the causes for Allah's Punishment settling on the Ummah. No one should wonder why Allah's Nusrat (Aid) is not with Muslims. His aid will be with the Ummah only if Muslims return to the Sunnah of Rasulullah (Sallallahu alayhi wasallam). In the Qur'aan Majeed, Allah Ta'ala says:
"If you aid (the Deen of) Allah, He will aid you and plant your feet firmly (against your enemies."
- Source
- themajlis.co.za
- Published in
- Al-Haq Bulletin No. 58
- PDF page
- 4
Appears under MUSLIM OPPRESSION AND INJUSTICE IN PALESTINE (approximate).