Taking internet and telephone cables from the street

A question about stealing internet and telephone cables from the street and whether placing them there counts as safe custody, in which Jordan's General Iftaa Department answered that theft is a major sin entailing the fixed penalty and sin, that custom decides what counts as custody, and that the custody of such cables is their being raised on poles or buried in their routes, so whoever takes them is a thief. ¹

The questioner asked: what is the ruling on stealing internet and telephone cables from the street, and does placing them in the street count as safe custody for them? ¹

The Department answered that theft is a major sin for which God threatens the offender with punishment in this world and torment in the next, in al-Ma'ida 38 and al-Nisa 29–30; it entails the fixed penalty when its conditions are met and entails sin, and the sin does not lapse even if the penalty does, while repentance is valid only by returning what was stolen or guaranteeing its value. ¹ It defined theft with Zakariyya al-Ansari in Asna al-Matalib (4/137) as, in language, taking property secretly, and in law, taking it secretly from the custody appropriate to it, subject to conditions; it said that taking from custody is a condition for the penalty, and that custody varies among the jurists with the custom by which a thing is regarded as secured, differing according to the kind of property, the state of people, whether upright or corrupt, and the times, which differ in the strength or weakness of the authorities. It quoted al-Khatib al-Shirbini in al-Iqna (2/535) that custom is the arbiter of custody, since neither sharia nor language defines it, so it is referred to custom like taking possession and reclaiming land, and that al-Ghazali defined it as what does not make the owner count as having neglected the thing: the courtyard of a house is custody for cheap vessels and clothes, while costly ones are secured in the rooms of houses, inns and well-guarded markets, a storeroom is custody for jewellery and cash, and sleeping on one's goods in open country, a mosque or a street is custody for them where using them as a pillow counts as securing them. ¹ It ruled that the custody of internet and telephone cables consists in their being raised on poles or buried in the routes designated for them, so whoever takes them is a thief, having taken them from the custody appropriate to them. ¹

Jordan's General Iftaa Department published this fatwa on aliftaa.jo as no. 4514, dated 10 September 2026, in the category of destructive sins, as a research fatwa issued by the Iftaa Committee. ¹ The museum records this text as a historical document attributed to the body or scholar that issued it; it issues no ruling of its own.