Are the minerals buried in the ground the exclusive property of the state, or does the people have a right to them?

The questioner : The question requires some detail. For example, the oil that is currently appearing in very large quantities, where the state invests and owns the lands and spends to extract it—viewed from this angle, it is the property of the state because the state is the owner of the land and the owner of the investment. This is likely the question I understood, which was circulating and being raised: that some people say that the minerals buried in the depths of the earth, which Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He) created there, are a right for the people in general. This is the issue currently being raised, and therefore they are not the exclusive property or monopoly of a family ruling the state, nor are they a monopoly of the state, even if a family does not rule it. Consequently, the returns from their sales or their benefits should benefit all citizens, contrary to what is happening now, where the state, represented by certain families—even if there are no families—is the sole owner and therefore divides it as it pleases. In other words, if it is the property of the state and the state benefits the remaining Muslims from it, there would be no need even to impose taxes, or the zakah revenue would truly be as you mentioned regarding the days of 'Umar ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz, when there were no poor people. But what we see now, despite the wealth of the state and the presence of oil, is that there are poor people?

The Shaykh : In my opinion, fiqh research should not be addressed in light of the reality of a specific person or government, but rather it should be examined free from any affiliation to a person or state. The ruling in this matter is, as I said earlier, a brief answer. However, the detail you explained earlier requires me, in turn, to enter into some detail: In true Islam, derived from the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) and what our righteous predecessors were upon, there is no such thing as "state property." Rather, the matter is as he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: His statement (peace and blessings be upon him): invalidates what is called today in many Arab states as "state property," except if we consider the state a fictional legal entity that places its hand on some lands and territories for the benefit of the ummah, not for the benefit of some individuals. In that case, it becomes its property on the condition that it proceeds to revive it. However, if it places markers on official maps stating that a certain piece of land extends from such a boundary to such a boundary in the east, north, and south, and then these lands remain barren, they are not state property, and any individual Muslim is entitled to revive whatever he wishes of them. So, the state, as a legal entity as I said, if it revives land from these lands, its ruling is the ruling of any individual of the ummah. But if it demarcates it and leaves it idle, that is not revival, and it is permissible for any individual at that time to come to any place of any land to revive it. The method of revival is not hidden from everyone; it is not by planting and watering or bringing water to it, but rather by extracting what is in it, including the minerals in its depths. For this reason, I said the ruling is one: it is not permissible for the state to place its hand on owned land on the claim that it contains resources and the state needs them. From here, we must distinguish between owned land; it is not permissible for the state to place its hand on it except in very, very rare circumstances, and it must take it for its price. And it is good to mention that the Saudi state, for example, applies this compensation generously on many lands and even properties that it takes over, as it compensates their owners with the like or better than the fair market price. But this confiscation is contrary to the original principle. If we assume a person inherited it from his fathers and grandfathers and wanted to invest in it, so he dug a well intending to draw water from it, and the well turned out to be an oil well, here now is the socialist system.