Understanding The Concept Of Ownership
As we know, not all properties we can own it. Some of the properties cannot be owned by individuals. For instance, the public properties and properties that belong to all mankind which individuals or government cannot claim exclusive right on them. According to Beheshti (1998), if someone wants to separate his share from nature, it has to be overseen by certain standards, which act as protection to the rest of humanity’s share. It means that we cannot simply do anything with whatever we owned without thinking of others. For example, we have our own car and no one can simply use our car without our permission, but we also cannot drive or park our car as we please. There are limitations to limit our claims to the ownership. Beheshti (1998) stated that if a person plants a tree, take good care of it until the tree is fruitful and uses the fruits for personal consumption at a degree over what is permitted by the per capita level, he would not be adjudged to have breached the proprietary right given to him. This is because he has not trespassed any property violation. Another situation is that, if a person infagh some of his property in the way of Allah, he will not lose the possession towards the property or object due to his act. Infagh does not change the nature of ownership.
In the concept of ownership, there is also ownership risk. Risk takes on many structure but is broadly classified as the possibility a result or investment’s actual return will vary from the expected result or return and it includes the probability of losing some or all of the original investment (Chen, 2019). If the return could be guaranteed under all circumstances, then there would be zero risk but it is impossible in this real world. Ikram (2018) claimed that ownership risk is a fundamental principle in Islamic Law of Contract as it is applied on some of modern financial instruments. Ownership risk becomes one of the important elements in the financial dealing model in Islam because fair and justice are supported by applying the concept. This is because it does not make any sense we need to bear the damage done to someone else’s car. Hence, the concept of ownership risk has been applied in some of modern financial instrument from Islamic Law of Contract’s perspective such as the preferred stock, wadi’ah-based deposit products, musharakah mutanaqisah-based property financing and sukuk musharakah. All the Islamic financial instruments are based on profit-loss sharing.
Every country must have its own rules and regulation related to the ownership. As for the Europe, America and Africa, the government may dispossess of an individual of his/her ownership for public interest and subject to rules provided for by the law and may restraint the ownership in conformity with the public interest or to protect the payment of taxes or other contributions or fine. When the ownership right is misused, the government may intrude and control the private ownership. The government may enforce curtailments on development and construction in a certain area and property. Individuals or the owners must follow the rules as they cannot use their property as they wish. Ownership is mean that the owner has the right to own, exploit or use a share of the property. If the owner does not use the private property especially the land, the government may interfere by taking the property and give it to other person who will utilise it.
Another example is Mr. A dropped his glass on purpose from the top floor of a building and Mr.B on the ground floor makes an effort to catch the glass from breaking into pieces. Beheshti (1998) asserted that Mr. A, who dropped the glass will lose his ownership towards the glass while Mr. B, who caught it will become the rightful owner of the glass. Mr. A has violated his legal and moral duties, so the seized commodity cannot be given back to him. Sometimes, countries with a high production mechanism think that it is a part of economic experience to dispose a huge amount of an agricultural product in a bid to maintain the equilibrium price. For instance, in America, in one year apple trees produce fruits beyond the optimum quantity. To avoid market surplus and a continuous price fall, the farmers decided to pick the fruits in an optimum quantity and let the rest of unpick fruit to decay and turn into fertiliser. Their action resulted in a violence against their moral conscience. The government should impose a strict law regarding the use of the property and give penalty to those who break the law.
To conclude, people take it easy on things related to ownership. Ownership does not give the owner a green light to do anything with the properties. There are rules and laws regarding the ownership provided by the government. The owners are bound to the laws. The state may interfere if there is any misuse of the ownership.
