The ruling on replacing a torn endowment book with a better one
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
He says: Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. If a man endowed a book in a library, and I read it and some of its paper tore, is it permissible for me to bring another one, better than it, and take the first book?
Answer:
No. If you were the one who tore it, you are the one who caused the damage, so you are liable for it. You must buy another book as a replacement, because you are the one who destroyed or tore it. Or, if it can be repaired, you repair it. You go to the bookbinders, or they fix the defects in it, and you pay the fee. The important thing is that you restore it to its original state. As for if it was affected by use without any fault on your part, then you owe nothing; you leave it as it is. Yes.
He says: Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. If a man endowed a book in a library, and I read it and some of its paper tore, is it permissible for me to bring another one, better than it, and take the first book?
Answer:
No. If you were the one who tore it, you are the one who caused the damage, so you are liable for it. You must buy another book as a replacement, because you are the one who destroyed or tore it. Or, if it can be repaired, you repair it. You go to the bookbinders, or they fix the defects in it, and you pay the fee. The important thing is that you restore it to its original state. As for if it was affected by use without any fault on your part, then you owe nothing; you leave it as it is. Yes.
Source
الفوزان -أشرطة- شرح زاد المستقنع مع الأسئلة - ٠٦٣-باب الوقف - الهبة - ٢٩-١-٢٤ هـ — archive.org (1:15:15)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.