Answer
Wa `alaykum as-salamu wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
In this fatwa:
You can decide according to these questions; is the legal interpretation of this kind of ownership, in Spanish law, such that you own 2/52 of the property? Is it considered a real state ownership? If the answer of these questions is yes, then it is permissible.
Responding to the question, Prof. Dr. Monzer Kahf, Scholar in Islamic Economics & Financial Expert, states:
This question came in more than one meeting of jurists and Islamic economists. The idea is that the Shari`ah has something that comes very close to timesharing as follows: one may purchase a common (or masha`) share in an indivisible (or even divisible with an agreement of all owners to keep it undivided) property, say 2/52 of a resort villa or apartment.
The use of this property is then divided between the owners of the property, villa or apartment, in proportion to their shares, this is called in the Shari`ah “al-muhaya’ah“. Does the contract of buying a timeshare give you the right to own, say 2/52 of that property or is it called simply you buy a timeshare? Is the legal interpretation of this kind of ownership, in Spanish law, such that you own 2/52 of the property? Is it considered a real state ownership? If the answer of these questions is yes, then it is permissible to buy and own, say, 2/52 of such a property.
As for the association agreement and fees and the substitutability of this share with others in other areas in a given year, even with substitution fees, all these are permissible as long as there are no other things that are incompatible with the Shari`ah.
Allah Almighty knows best.
Editor’s note: This fatwa is from Ask the Scholar’s archive and was originally published at an earlier date.