its interests, there are two narrations. One of them is that it is permissible to revive it. Ahmad said, in the narration of Abu al-Saqr, regarding two men who revived two pieces of wasteland and there remained a patch between them, and a man came to revive it, that they have no right to prevent him. He also said regarding a public graveyard (jabbana) between two villages: Whoever revives it, it is his. This is the school of al-Shafi'i, due to the generality of his (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) statement: "Whoever revives dead land, it is his." Also, the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) granted Bilal ibn al-Harith al-Muzani the region of al-'Aqiq, and he knew it was between the inhabited areas of Medina. Furthermore, it is wasteland that has no connection to the interests of the cultivated area, so it is permissible to revive it, like distant land. The second narration is that it is not permissible to revive it. This is the view of Abu Hanifa and al-Layth, because it is in a location where the connection of interests is possible; it is possible that one might need to open a door in his wall leading to the open space (fina') and use it as a path, or his wall might fall into ruin, leading him to place construction materials in that open space, and other such things. It is not permissible to allow this to be missed, unlike with distant land. Once this is established, there is no set limit that separates the near from the distant except for custom ('urf). Al-Layth said: Its limit is a 'ghalwa', which is one-fifth of a farsakh. Abu Hanifa said: The limit of the distant is that if a man stood at its edge and shouted with his loudest voice, the person nearest to the city would not hear him. Our position is that the limit is not known except by revelatory authority (tawqif), and it is not known by opinion or arbitrary imposition. There is no limit stated in the Shari'ah regarding this, so one must refer to custom, just as with taking possession (qabd) and protection (ihraz). The statement of those who set a limit is an arbitrary assertion without evidence, and it is no more valid than setting the limit at something else, like a mile, or a mile and a half, or similar. This limit which they mentioned—and Allah knows best—is specific to what is near a city or village, and it is not valid to be a limit for everything near a cultivated area, because that leads to the conclusion that whoever revives land in a wasteland, it becomes prohibited for others to revive anything from that wasteland as long as it does not fall outside that limit.

Section: All lands are the same regarding what we have mentioned, whether it is land conquered by force, like the land of al-Sham