Interdiction (hajr)

الحجر على التصرف

Interdiction (hajr) means prevention. Jurists define it differently: the Shafi'is and Hanbalis as a bar on financial dealings, whether for the sake of another, such as a bankrupt debtor's creditors, or of the restricted person himself, such as a madman or a wastrel; the Hanafis as a bar on the validity of a spoken transaction; the Malikis as a legal quality that prevents its bearer from carrying out dealings beyond his means or giving away more than a third of his property. ^{1 2} It is established by the Qur'an (”Do not give the foolish your property”, and ”when you perceive maturity in them, hand over their property”) and by a report that the Prophet ﷺ restricted Mu'adh's property for a debt, which some scholars hold to be a mursal report. ^{2 3} The causes are childhood, madness and slavery, agreed upon, and, for the majority, wastefulness and terminal illness. ⁴ A minor under restraint is released on reaching puberty and proving sound judgement; the majority take sound judgement to mean sound management of property, the Shafi'is in the sounder view take it to cover religion and property, and Abu Hanifa fixes it at twenty-five years of age. ^{4 5 6 7} The Hanafis hold that the transactions of an overwhelmed madman are void; the Malikis hold that he is liable for what he destroys. ⁸ For the wastrel, the majority require a judge's order both to impose and to lift the restraint, and re-impose it if he returns to waste; Muhammad ibn al-Hasan and Ibn al-Qasim do not require a judge's order. ^{9 10 11 12} The heedless person who is cheated in sales is restrained by Abu Yusuf and Muhammad, not by Abu Hanifa. ^{12 13} The dissolute man is not restrained by the majority unless he wastes his property; the Shafi'is in the opposite view restrain him. ^{13 14} For a free adult wife, Malik and a report from Ahmad restrain her in giving more than a third of her property without her husband's consent. ^{14 15} One dying of illness is restrained from giving beyond a third of his estate where there is no debt. ^{15 16} A pledgor is restrained from dealing in the pledged thing, and Hanafi jurists restrain for public good the reckless mufti, the ignorant physician and the bankrupt muleteer, the restraint being physical rather than legal. ¹⁶