The mere fact that it mentions in one place that “the earth...

The mere fact that it mentions in one place that “the earth belongs to God”[^6] is not enough to conclude that it either denies or forbids private owner­ship of land and sanctions nationalization. Elsewhere it says, “Whatever is in the heavens and the earth belongs to God,”[^7] but nobody has ever concluded from this verse that none of the things in the heavens or the earth can be held in individual possession or that all these things should be State property.

If, a thing which belongs to God ceases to belong to human beings, certainly it ceases to belong to individuals and States alike. It is equally erroneous to draw from verse xli, 10 the inference that the Qur'an desires to distribute all the means of livelihood in the earth equally among all men, and conclude that since this can be achieved only under nationalization, the Qur'an advocates or favours the introduction of that system.

For the purpose of this interpretation the verse is wrongly rendered to mean that “God has put in the earth its means of sustenance proportionately in four days, alike for those who seek.”[^8] But even this wrong translation does not serve the purpose. It would be incorrect to apply the words “alike for those who seek” to human beings alone. All kinds of animals, too, are among “those who seek,” and there is little doubt that their means of sustenance have also been placed by God in the earth.

If this verse, then, denotes an equal share to all who seek, there is no justification for restricting this equality of share to members of the human species alone. Similarly, it would be wrong to stretch those verses of the Qur'an which emphasize providing for the weak or the have‑nots to extract from them the theory of nationalization.

It should be seen that wherever it stresses this need of providing for the poor, it also prescribes the only way of meeting it, namely, that the rich and the well‑to‑do of a society should spend their wealth generously for the welfare of their poor kin, the orphans, and the needy for the pleasure of God; in addition to this, the State should collect a fixed portion of it and spend it for the same purpose.

There is no hint in the Qur'an of any other scheme proposed to be put in practice to meet this end.