[Do Women Have a Share in Commons and Water Channels?]

Mufti:

Alsayyed Muhammad b. Abdallah Awad Al-Muayyady

تاريخ النشر: February 16, 2026

Fatwa number: 21841

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[Do Women Have a Share in Commons and Water Channels?]

Fatwa number: 21841

Question: There are grazing commons (maḥājir) and irrigation channels (masāqī). The people of a land may agree to divide those tracts among themselves. Is it obligatory, in such cases, to allocate women’s shares, or not?

Answer—and Allah is the One who grants success: As for the masāqī that water the (owners’) properties, their legal path is the path of property; they are divided among all heirs, women and men—because they are rights attaching to properties.
As for the maḥājir in which livestock graze, they need not be distributed according to the law of inheritance, because they are public rights and thus do not enter inheritance—unlike the former, namely the masāqī, which are private rights.
Source: Min Thimār al-ʿIlm wa al-Ḥikmah vol.2