"The Legal Impacts of Missing Persons - A comparative study between Islamic jurisprudence & Egyptian law"

mohamed sami Abdel sadek, Faculty of Law - Cairo University - Egypt

Abstract

A missing person is a person who has disappeared for no known reason. For sure, many questions may arise concerning the security of transactions with the missing person's estate, such as the disposition of his land, the right to proceed with insurance policies on his life and his pensions, the right to a cause of action, the necessity of providing for his dependents, the marital status of his spouse, the devolution of succession rights that would pass to him, the release of property from a life tenancy, the requirement of his consent to certain transactions, the merchantability of land titles from his estate, and claims of inheritance from him. In this article we will try to answer some questions related to Islamic jurisprudence and Egyptian laws, such as: How long can a person be missing before being declared legally dead? When is a missing person presumed dead? What happens when someone "legally dead" shows up alive?