Who owns a found item if two people see it, and one quickly takes it, or one sees it, informs the other, and the informed one takes it?

General Chapter

Al-Mughni

Book of Lost-and-Found Property

Book 29 · Issue 2 · Bab 1

Open in Qurani

Primary text

The item belongs exclusively to the individual who physically takes possession of it. This is because the right to ownership of found property is established through the act of taking, not merely through the act of seeing, analogous to the rules governing hunting (catching game).