Intifa' (the right of use and benefit, and its rulings)

Intifa' is the reaching of a benefit. It is used for a personal right of use, which cannot pass to another, and for ownership of the benefit, which the owner may dispose of and transfer. ¹

• The cause of the right of use is wider: it arises from contracts, from original permission and from leave; owned benefit arises only from specific causes, such as hire, loan, a bequest of usufruct, and endowment. ²
• Bare use is a weaker right; the owner of a benefit may let it or lend it. ²
• Examples of bare use: living in a madrasa or a hostel; examples of owned benefit: the hirer, the borrower, the legatee of usufruct and the endower's beneficiary. ²³

• Obligatory: eating what is lawful when one fears for his life, even if the food is forbidden, according to the majority. ³
• Forbidden: using what is forbidden by the Law, such as carrion and blood outside necessity, or lawful things in a way that harms another or takes another's property. ³
• Permitted: using lawful things, such as food up to satiety, shared public things like roads and air, and property with the owner's leave or under a contract. ³⁴

• Permission: original, as in public rivers and unowned roads; legal, by a text; and special permission from the owner. ⁴⁵
• Necessity: the fear of death, which must be compelling, present, with no other way, and not beyond what is needed. ⁵⁶
  • Using the forbidden in necessity is obligatory according to the majority. ⁵⁶
  • Wine may be taken to swallow a morsel; carrion and blood may not be used as medicine in the majority view. ⁶⁷
  • The flesh of a dead person in necessity is disputed. ⁷
  • Where carrion and another's property are both available, the majority give precedence to carrion, since its permission is stated. ⁷
• Contract: hire, loan, bequest of usufruct and endowment; a pledge and a deposit give use by implication under conditions. ⁷⁸

• Use with the thing remaining, as in loan and hire; the borrower may not let it out for profit. ⁸
• Use with income, as in endowment and bequest where the donor permits use as the beneficiary wishes. ⁸⁹
• Consumption, as with food at banquets; a loan of measured or weighed goods is a loan, since it cannot be used without being consumed. ⁹

• Use must follow the Law and must not harm another; sitting on a road in a way that does not block passers-by is permitted. ⁹
• The user must keep within the owner's leave; the guest may not give the food to another without consent. ¹⁰
• He must keep to the conditions in the contract, and where none is stated, to custom. ¹⁰

• Conditions limit use: a borrowed riding animal lent for the borrower's own use may not be lent on. Limits to a person apply where the use depends on the user; the Hanafis disregard them elsewhere. ¹⁰¹¹
• Inheritance of use: most jurists allow it in hire and bequest, not in loan; the Hanafis deny inheritance of use altogether. ¹¹¹²
• Upkeep of the thing: falls on the owner when use is paid, and on the user when it is gratuitous, in the Hanafi view and one Maliki view. ¹²¹³
• Liability: authorised use does not create liability; use of a usurped thing or a deposit does; using another's property in necessity creates liability in the majority view. ¹³¹⁴
• Delivery: due in a binding contract, not in a gift before possession. ¹⁴
• Return: due in a loan when the lender asks; the hirer need not return after the term, and the cost of return falls on the lessor in hire and on the borrower in loan. ¹⁴¹⁵

• Termination by the will of one party in gratuitous contracts, by options such as defect, vision and stipulation in hire, by failure of the purpose in the majority view, and by mutual cancellation. ¹⁵¹⁶
• Ending by the term, by destruction of the thing, by the death of the user in a binding contract, and by the loss of the permitting condition such as necessity. ¹⁶
• Seizure of the thing causes rescission in the majority view, not automatic ending. ¹⁶