The Expediency Principle of Inanimate Land: a Study of Ihya' al-Mawat in Classical Fiqh and Land Reform in Indonesian Agrarian Law

Abstract

This article examines the comparison between the fiqh concept of iḥyā' al-mawāt and Indonesian national agrarian law on land reform, especially the right to open land. The author uses a comparative approach in this discussion, which compares the existing concepts in fiqh (as Islamic law) and national agrarian law (as Indonesian positive law). This article contributes to the discourse on Islamic land law, also known as agrarian fiqh, which has not been widely studied. This article shows that in the classical Islamic literature, there has been a study of land and how the Prophet Muhammad PBUH regulated land management. One of the concepts in fiqh is iḥyā' al-mawāt, which is to revive dead land. This is a starting point to introduce the tradition of agrarian fiqh in the classical literature. This article concludes that in both fiqh and Indonesian agrarian law, there is a concept of land clearing based on the principle of expediency. However, iḥyā' al-mawāt and the Indonesian national agrarian law on land reform still have differences, both in terms of concept, regulation, and implementation. This article is limited to a literature review that must be further studied from the context of the application of these two laws. This article contributes to the understanding of the two laws that are applied in Indonesia, namely positive law and Islamic law.