There are disputes on the nature of property that is adopted by Islamic sacred texts (theQur’an and the Sunnah) and Islamic legal thought, and on the kind of equilibrium that hasbeen established between private and collective ownership. This article analyses the natureof property on the basis of Islamic sacred texts and Islamic legal thought. For thispurpose, evidences for the concept of private ownership will be analyzed together withthe evidences for God’s absolute sovereignty over universe. It will be argued that becauseof the harmful nature of collective ownership for the society, private property is adopted.The article also analyses the classical approaches that justify private property from theviewpoint of Islamic jurisprudence and economics and modern theories which argue thatthe concept of property that was adopted is individual or collective.