Hefazat Strongly Condemns Property Transfer Law

Chittagong Bureau

Maulana Azizul Haque Islamabadi, Joint Secretary General of Hefazat-e-Islam Bangladesh, has strongly protested the passage of the Property Transfer (Amendment) Bill 2026 in Parliament without seeking the opinions of Islamic Sharia experts. In a statement issued on Monday night, he said the law conflicts with the Quran and Sunnah.

He said, “No law that goes against Islamic Sharia will be acceptable in this country to the majority of Muslim scholars and Ulema. This bill must be amended.” He urged the President not to sign the bill.

Maulana Azizul Haque Islamabadi said the new method of transferring property from parents to their children, described as “gift while retaining lifetime usufruct rights,” allows the donor to use and enjoy the property until their death. If the recipient dies before the donor, the property will pass to the recipient’s heirs.

He said although the new law may appear reasonable on the surface, it creates an opportunity to give special benefits to one or more heirs while depriving others. As a result, it could violate the Shariah-based principles of property distribution, known as the rules of Faraid.

He said the Ministry of Law should have sought the public opinions of Islamic Sharia experts before placing the bill before Parliament. “Making laws according to our own wishes by bypassing the legal framework of the Quran, the Book of Allah, amounts to disregarding Shariah,” he said.

Maulana Azizul Haque Islamabadi further said that under Islamic inheritance law, the share of each heir is specifically determined by the Quran and Sunnah. There is no scope to change or amend the inheritance rules prescribed by Allah on the grounds of social realities, family needs or any other argument.

He said adopting such methods to bypass the fixed shares of Islamic inheritance or to control the distribution of property after death is completely unlawful. In this regard, he referred to Hadith No. 2117 of Jami` at-Tirmidhi, where the Prophet (peace be upon him) said, “Allah Almighty has given every rightful person his due right. Therefore, there is no bequest for any heir.”

However, he said, if all adult heirs voluntarily agree to something after the donor’s death, that is an entirely different matter. In that case, it is not a matter of changing the inheritance rules on behalf of the deceased. Rather, it becomes a matter of the heirs’ own consent.

He said that if a person gifts their property to their daughter while alive but retains management, possession and income from the property for themselves and makes it a condition that the property will be transferred to the daughter after their death, such an arrangement is not acceptable under Shariah.

The true meaning of hiba, or a gift, is that the property must completely leave the donor’s ownership and pass into the ownership of the recipient. If the donor retains lifetime possession, use or usufruct rights for themselves, it directly conflicts with the basic principles of hiba. He said, “Shariah-contradicting laws are being passed in Parliament, yet those responsible in the Ministry of Religious Affairs are playing the role of silent spectators?”

“We will tell the government: Do not provoke religious people by interfering with religious laws and rules. The heirs of the Prophets, the respected ulema, will not make any concession on matters of Islamic law,” he said.