Gifts

Eid gifts

Q: My family in the recent years have developed this habit of distributing eid gifts amongst the entire family. Whilst it is totally permissable and sunnah to exchange gifts, the family gathers together and each gift is opened and ooohs an ahhhs are shared.

My concern is this practice may mimic the Kuffar when done on the festive days and secondly with every passing year the gifts somehow need to become more elaborate than the year before since it is presented in a formal gathering of the entire family being present.

Can Mufti saheb please provide some direction of how this sunnah should be practiced when presenting a gift and should this existing practice be kept or done away with?

Making an intention to gift half of one's property

Q: Muhammad owns a property. He was thinking of giving his wife half ownership of the property and may have made an intention in his heart to gift it. He never told her verbally directly or indirectly about this and as far as she is concerned it belongs to him. Neither did he tell anybody else or wrote anything about it.

He later decided against giving it. Does he still own the full property or does his wife now own half?

Secretly giving one's wife extra money

Q: Sometimes I secretly replace my wife's money from her purse with a bigger amount. For example, if she had R50, I take the R50 for myself and replace it with a R100 without her knowing in order to surprise her. When she comes to know of a bigger amount, I lie to her and tell her it was miracle that took place from the side of Allah. It really pleases her when she hears stuff like this, miracles etc. 

My questions are:

1. Am I guilty of the sin of lying?

2. By me replacing her money with a larger amount, is this regarded as Ribaa?

Grandfather gifting property to grandson

Q: My husband's grandfather signed over a piece of property to my husband when he was a child. The property is in his name in all the official paperwork. Is this property rightfully his or would he have to share it with his brothers and sisters? We would like to build a school for young girls on this piece of property, but all of his family members are objecting and would not like to build the school there. They want to sell the land and share the money. Does he have a right to build the school or does he have to share with his brothers and sister? We also have 4 children too.