Not knowing the owner of the money
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Fatwa No. ( 9092 )
Q: A man works for a daily wage in building a roof for my father for more than twenty years, and he placed an iron box with my father, and he disappeared and is not known about him, and when my father passed away in the year 1397 AH
in the month of Shawwal, we wanted to know the owner of the box, and we found a paper wrapped inside a room, containing an amount of three thousand, three hundred, and sixty-two Abu Sayf pounds. I learned from my father during his lifetime that he had spent some of this money, so I bought silver until I completed what was in the paper. I announced the worker's name and the owner of the money in the newspaper (Al-Jazirah) three times, and no one came forward. I would like to note that the silver money is currently worth five paper riyals or more per silver riyal. I do not know what to do with this money and the box. Do you see, may your excellence be pleased, that I should spend the silver and take paper money and invest it for him in a mosque project, or that I should buy him land and present it as a mosque? Or do you see that it should enter the public treasury? Knowing that all I desire is to clear my father's conscience. May Allah reward you with good.
A: If the situation is as described, it is prescribed for you to spend the mentioned money in a way of righteousness; such as participating with it in land on which a mosque is built, or in the construction of a mosque, or for the poor, with the intention that its reward belongs to its owner. If he comes in the future, inform him of the situation. If he is pleased with that, praise be to Allah; otherwise, give him its equivalent, and the reward is for you.
Q: A man works for a daily wage in building a roof for my father for more than twenty years, and he placed an iron box with my father, and he disappeared and is not known about him, and when my father passed away in the year 1397 AH
in the month of Shawwal, we wanted to know the owner of the box, and we found a paper wrapped inside a room, containing an amount of three thousand, three hundred, and sixty-two Abu Sayf pounds. I learned from my father during his lifetime that he had spent some of this money, so I bought silver until I completed what was in the paper. I announced the worker's name and the owner of the money in the newspaper (Al-Jazirah) three times, and no one came forward. I would like to note that the silver money is currently worth five paper riyals or more per silver riyal. I do not know what to do with this money and the box. Do you see, may your excellence be pleased, that I should spend the silver and take paper money and invest it for him in a mosque project, or that I should buy him land and present it as a mosque? Or do you see that it should enter the public treasury? Knowing that all I desire is to clear my father's conscience. May Allah reward you with good.
A: If the situation is as described, it is prescribed for you to spend the mentioned money in a way of righteousness; such as participating with it in land on which a mosque is built, or in the construction of a mosque, or for the poor, with the intention that its reward belongs to its owner. If he comes in the future, inform him of the situation. If he is pleased with that, praise be to Allah; otherwise, give him its equivalent, and the reward is for you.
Source
www.alifta.gov.sa
The Arabic text is copied verbatim from the original source, without any edits.