Missing person’s properties: exploration on challenges and opportunities

Al-Mafqud, or a missing person is defined as someone who is lost for a long period of time without any news of his whereabout and his status whether he is still alive or otherwise. This uncertainty of his or her status creates the conflict and their properties need to be frozen due to law constraints. At this point of time, it has been identified that more than one million cases of inheritance of missing persons’ properties are unable to be resolved and the value of the properties reached billions of Ringgit. This phenomenon raises many issues and problems that become increasingly critical and extremely difficult to resolve and until now, no solution has been proposed by the government. Besides, if the issue stays unresolved, it will give detrimental effect to society. However, if the properties are used wisely, it will give a positive impact to the society. However, managing of Al-Mafqud properties are not a simple matter. It involves legal issues, inheritance rights, and various relevant issues. Those issues bring challenges in managing al-Mafqud properties in civil and Islamic law perspectives, which this study attempts to discuss. This research hopes to bring awareness to the parties involved on the importance of managing and utilizing al-Mafqud properties in a good manner.