and its smoke, or if he digs a latrine (15) at the base of his neighbor's wall which causes harm to his neighbor due to its odor or otherwise, or if he turns his house into a bakery in the midst of perfumers or similar areas that harms his neighbors, he does not have the right to do so. Al-Shafi'i said: He has the right to do all of that, because it is a permissible act of disposal within his own property, resembling the building and tearing down of his own house. Our position is based on the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): "There shall be no harm and no reciprocation of harm" (16). Furthermore, it is the initiation of harm upon his neighbor, which is not permissible, just like hammering that shakes walls and ruins them, or throwing fertilizer, dirt, and the like at the base of a neighbor's wall in a manner that causes harm. If a man has a water cistern and his neighbor wants to plant a fig tree (17) [near it] (18) or something similar whose roots spread, split the wall of the neighbor's cistern, and destroy it, he does not have the right to do so, and his neighbor has the right to prevent him and to uproot it if he has already planted it. If the one causing the harm was the one who arrived first—for example, if someone has a tannery or a fulling mill in his property, and then a person brings barren land next to him to life and builds a house [on it] and is harmed by that—the removal of the harm is not required, according to a consensus (ijma) that we are aware of, because he did not initiate the harm. And Allah the Almighty knows best.

917 - Issue: He said: (And it is the same in this regard whether he brought it to life [himself], or arrived at it first with the permission of the Imam, or without his permission).

In summary, the reclamation of barren land does not require the permission of the Imam. This is the opinion of Al-Shafi'i, Abu Yusuf, and Muhammad. Abu Hanifa said: It does require his permission, because the Imam has a role in overseeing such matters, as evidenced by the fact that whoever marks boundaries on barren land but does not reclaim it is demanded to either reclaim it or abandon it; thus it requires his permission, like the wealth of the Public Treasury (Bayt al-Mal). Our evidence is the generality of his (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) statement: "Whoever brings a dead [barren] land to life (1), it is his" (2). Furthermore, this is a permissible asset, so its acquisition does not require the permission of the Imam, like taking