Russia under the Czars was not an industrial country. It consisted of large country estates owned by hereditary nobles. Land therefore was the first concern of Communism in Russia, not industry. Whatever Karl Marx wrote about Capitalism concerned mainly big money and industry, as he was born and educated in Germany, which was far more industrialised. When Lenin and other Russian revolutionary leaders adopted his philosophy and tried to apply his theories to Russian conditions, they came up with the following principles:

1. All land belongs to the State;

2. Land must therefore be taken over by the State and be redistributed to those willing to till the soil;

3. Each land-holder should have just enough land that could be cultivated by him alone, and no more;

4. Land, as property of the State, must be utilized to its full potential. The cultivator, as agent of the State, must accept the decisions of the State regarding use of land.

Right to Own Land

Islamic teachings, the broad principles of which have already been explained, is that all land belongs to God who recognises just titles to portions of it, subject to the condition that, at the death of the titleholder, the land should be divided among stipulated heirs in specified proportions (one share for each boy, one-half share for the girl and one-third share for the parents) and that in no case must it be passed on to any single heir by excluding the others. In the absence of children, the land would be divided among brothers, sisters, and parents and, if there were no legitimate heir, the land would revert to God’s representative, which is the State in this case. No one may bequeath more than one-third of his inheritance, with the condition that none of the stipulated heirs have any share in this one-third. This teaching is full of wisdom, because:

1. The right of ownership is recognised, therefore, every owner would be inclined to put their land to best use, as his livelihood depends on it.

2. Because the owner’s children know that one day they too would be cultivating the land, they would strive to gain expertise in farming.

3. Even where there are large landholdings initially, they would be subdivided into smaller lots over time because of the law of inheritance.

4. Finally, because Islam maintains that all land belongs ultimately to God, no one may acquire it through illegitimate means.

Under non-Islamic systems, conquered territories are given away to the companions of conqueror or to those with influence. It is because of this system that the Norman conquerors were able to parcel out land in certain areas of England, Scotland and Ireland to chosen nobles, while leaving the inhabitants landless, with no place even to build their own homes. This situation persists in several areas to this day, where large owners rent out their buildings, but retain their power and influence. The same thing happened in France, Germany, Austria and Italy, though some improvement in the situation occurred following the Napoleonic wars. In the United States of America, too, as the country developed, a group of big land owners emerged through the simple expediency of dispossessing as many of the original inhabitants as they could manage and then continued to hold on to what they had gained, or rather usurped. And the same story repeated itself in Australia and Kenya, where English settlers took possession of hundreds of thousands of acres, leaving the natives landless.

As a result of the Islamic conquests in Arabia, the conquerors were given a portion of the land. Since in Arabia proper, arable land was limited, there was little danger of large illicit landowners to emerge. In Yemen and Syria however, both of which had a long established agricultural tradition, land was left in the possession of the original owners. Iraq, in contrast, was a sparsely populated, but fertile country that had been evacuated when the Persians moved back to their own country. Although some Generals in the victorious Islamic army did initially try to redistribute the land among the conquerors; Hazrat Umar(ra) disapproved of the idea. His reason was that he could foresee the harm it could do to succeeding generations. He, therefore, retained the vanquished land as government property. Similarly, in Egypt, original landowners were left in possession of the land.

In short, in the shape given to the Islamic Order at the outset, it was recognised that vacant lands that came under Muslim authority in conquered territories were to remain in the State’s hands and be used in the general interest of all, instead of being distributed among the top leadership. This was done to avoid the emergence of a landed aristocracy, as happened in Europe. During later periods, it is true, the Islamic teaching was not fully observed, but Muslim rulers were never altogether freed from its influence. In India, too, when the Muslim rule came to the country, the land was left with the old owners whose tenure was preserved. Only vacant land was taken over by the State. All of the large estates found in India today were created later under the British rule. The new rulers were eager to settle matters and gain influence in the country, regardless of whether this was achieved through favour or fear. In most cases, the new governments in Bengal and Uttar Pradesh bestowed title to the tehsildars [tax collecting agents] over areas found in their jurisdiction. This was a terrible injustice to the real owners of those lands.

Thus, the Islamic system applies to land ownership in a manner similar to its application in other economic spheres, i.e., there is no place for large land owners and the government cannot create a class of large land owners by redistributing state land. It is another matter that a person might purchase additional land, but there is not much scope for this either. If it is a trader, he is unlikely to purchase land as he might make more money in trade. If he is already a landowner, his means to purchase additional land are in any case limited and not significant enough to harm the country’s economic condition. Furthermore, thanks to the laws of inheritance, the size of land ownership would decline within one or two generations.