Precincts (harim)

الحريم

Harim (sanctum, enclosure) in the lexicon is what is forbidden and not to be violated, the courtyard of a house or mosque, and the protected zone; in law it is what surrounds a thing and serves its rights and uses, which its owner alone may use, and for the Shafi'is what the full use of the thing needs. ¹ It differs from hima, the ruler's reserving of land from grazing for the Muslims' good. ² It is not lawful to revive the harim of a well, a river or a spring, and the majority hold that the harim of a settled land cannot be owned, while al-Shafi'i holds that it can. ^{2 3} The extent of the harim varies: for a well the Hanafis fix a measure, the Malikis and Shafi'is leave it to need, and the Hanbalis separate an old well from a new one, giving fifty cubits for the old and twenty-five for the new. ^{3 4 5} For a river, Abu Yusuf and Muhammad give a harim of half or the full width on each side; Abu Hanifa gives none on another's land without proof; the Shafi'is and Hanbalis allow what is needed to throw out the silt. ^{6 7} The harim of a tree is five cubits for the Hanafis; the harim of a house is what its occupant uses; the harim of a village is its woodcutting and pasture; the harim of cultivated land is what its cultivation needs. ^{7 8} Building is allowed in the harim of a house and forbidden in the harim of a river, and what is built there is pulled down. ⁹ The harim takes the ruling of what it belongs to: each forbidden thing has a harim around it, and the harim of a duty is what the duty cannot be done without. ¹⁰