Antiquities found on one's own land

A question about a man who found ancient statues while digging on land he had bought to build a house, in which Dar al-Ifta al-Misriyya answered that antiquities found on Egyptian land are public property of the state and do not enter private ownership even when found on owned land, so he may neither own, keep nor dispose of them and must hand them to the competent authorities. ¹

The questioner said that a man had bought a plot in one of Egypt's governorates to build a house, that while digging he found ancient statues, and that he was afraid to tell anyone lest someone covet them or he expose himself to danger; he asked what the correct course of action is. ¹

Dar al-Ifta began with rikaz, buried treasure. The Hanafis apply the word to anything of value buried in the earth, whether placed by a creature, which is a hoard (kanz), or there by nature, which is a mine (ma'din), as al-Zayla'i says in Tabyin al-Haqa'iq (1/288); the majority of Malikis, Shafi'is and Hanbalis restrict it to what was buried in pre-Islamic times, as explained by Ulaysh in Minah al-Jalil (2/81), al-Khatib al-Shirbini in Mughni al-Muhtaj (2/103) and al-Ruhaybani in Matalib Uli al-Nuha (2/80). ¹ It then set out what becomes of rikaz in each school: for the Hanafis a fifth is paid and the rest goes to the person the ruler granted the land at the conquest or to his heirs, failing whom to the treasury, as Ibn Abidin says in Radd al-Muhtar (2/322–323); for the Malikis a fifth is due and the rest goes to a landowner who acquired the land by reclamation or inheritance, not by purchase, while in land conquered by force it goes to the army and then to the treasury; for the Shafi'is the finder owns it, paying the fifth, if he found it in dead land or land he reclaimed, but what is found in a mosque or a street, or whose pre-Islamic or Islamic origin is unknown, is treated as lost property, citing Mughni al-Muhtaj and al-Ramli in Nihayat al-Muhtaj (3/99); and for the Hanbalis the finder owns it, paying the fifth, in dead land, a street, a ruin, or land he reclaimed or that passed to him, citing Ibn Qudama in al-Mughni (3/52) and al-Buhuti in Kashshaf al-Qina' (2/227). ¹

Dar al-Ifta then defined antiquities: in language, the remnant of a thing, as Ibn Sida says in al-Muhkam (10/173), and in article 1 of Egypt's Antiquities Protection Law 117 of 1983, as the product of Egyptian civilisation or of the civilisations that rose on Egyptian soil up to a hundred years ago, having archaeological, artistic or historical value. ¹ It said that fatwas change with time, place and circumstance, and that the fatwa on antiquities rests on several considerations: the unknown identity of their first owner and his heirs; their being a cause of dispute and greed that has often led to killing and plunder; the harm to the whole community if a single person kept them, as against the public benefit of museums, tourism and the economy; and the antiquity of Egyptian civilisation, the cradle of the sciences, together with the Qur'an's call to travel the earth and take lessons from the traces of past nations, as in al-Hajj 46 and al-Ankabut 20. ¹

It quoted article 6 of the law, which makes all immovable and movable antiquities public property except what is endowed or privately owned, and articles 23 and 24, which require anyone who finds an antiquity to notify the authorities within forty-eight hours and to safeguard it until they take it over, with a possible reward for the informant. ¹ It said this agrees with what the jurists laid down, quoting al-Hattab in Mawahib al-Jalil (2/335) that Malik placed mines in the ruler's hands because the worst of people gather around them, and Ulaysh in Minah al-Jalil (2/78) that this closes the door to strife even when the mine appears on a specific person's land. ¹ It argued that the ruler's disposal over his subjects is bound by the public interest, as in al-Suyuti's al-Ashbah wa-l-Naza'ir (p. 121), quoting al-Shafi'i that the ruler stands to his subjects as a guardian to an orphan and Umar that he treated himself with God's property as an orphan's guardian, and in al-Mawardi's al-Hawi al-Kabir (9/132); that public interests precede private ones, as al-Shatibi says in al-Muwafaqat (3/57) and al-Izz ibn Abd al-Salam in Qawa'id al-Ahkam (2/188); and that within the sphere of the permissible the ruler may require or forbid what the public interest demands, as Ali al-Khafif says in al-Milkiyya fi al-Shari'a al-Islamiyya (p. 90). ¹ It noted the benefits of state ownership of antiquities for national identity, heritage and income, cited Ibn Khaldun's words on the nobility of the art of history in the introduction to his history (1/13), and then made obedience to the ruler in this matter obligatory on the basis of al-Nisa 59, the agreed-upon hadith of Abu Hurayra that whoever obeys the commander has obeyed the Prophet ﷺ, and the consensus reported by Ibn Hazm in Maratib al-Ijma' (p. 126) that obeying the ruler in what is not sinful is obligatory. ¹

Dar al-Ifta concluded that antiquities found on Egyptian land are public property of the state and do not enter private ownership, whether found on land owned by a valid and settled title or otherwise, so the man may neither own, keep nor dispose of the statues he found and must hand them over to the competent authorities. ¹

Dar al-Ifta al-Misriyya published this fatwa on dar-alifta.org as no. 8953, dated 28 April 2026, in the category of manners and ethics, among the fatwas of the Grand Mufti Nazir Muhammad Ayyad. 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.