Waqf: the endowment that keeps the principal and gives the yield

A waqf is an act by which an owner locks the capital of his property away from sale, gift and inheritance, and gives its yield to a good cause for ever. The best-known report of its beginning concerns Umar ibn al-Khattab: he acquired land at Khaybar, the most precious property he had ever owned, and asked the Prophet's advice. The Prophet told him: "If you wish, hold back its capital and give its yield in charity." Umar gave it on condition that it would not be sold, given away or inherited ¹. From that formula grew a system that funded most of the mosques, colleges, hospitals, public fountains and soup kitchens of Muslim cities from the mid-eighth century to the late nineteenth. An important part of it survives today ².

The TDV Encyclopedia of Islam defines waqf as the permanent dedication of property to a religious, social or charitable purpose. Other words for it are habs, hubus, ahbas, tasbil and sabil, and it is also called "endowed charity" and "continuing charity" (sadaqa jariya). The Hanafis call it waqf, while the Shafi'is, Malikis and Zahiris mostly use the word habs ³.

A waqf has well-known parts: a founder who owns the property; an endowed asset that lasts and yields an income; a purpose to which the income goes; and an administrator (mutawalli) who runs it. The purpose can be a described group, such as the poor, students or travellers, or a public building, such as a mosque, college, library, hospital, road or water fountain, and even animals ³. By beneficiary, jurists divide waqfs into charitable ones, whose income goes to good causes from the start, and family ones, which serve the founder's relatives and pass to the poor when the line dies out. Most jurists allowed the second kind ³.

The TDV Encyclopedia notes that the word "waqf" does not occur in the Qur'an, and that this opened a debate on the origin of the institution. It says the Qur'an contains ideas from which such an institution could grow, ideas that waqf books repeat: spending in the way of God (al-Baqara 2:195, 261), cooperating in goodness (al-Ma'ida 5:2), and racing one another to good deeds (al-Baqara 2:148; Al 'Imran 3:114). It adds that Muslims, as they built their civilisation, were influenced by the cultures they met and reshaped what they took in line with their faith ². No source read for this record describes a particular pre-Islamic institution of which waqf was a continuation.

Al-Bukhari, in the chapter "Conditions in waqf", reports from Nafi' from Ibn Umar that Umar ibn al-Khattab acquired land at Khaybar and came to the Prophet to ask his counsel about it. He said: I have acquired land at Khaybar; I have never had property more precious to me, so what do you advise? The Prophet said: "If you wish, hold back its capital and give it in charity." So Umar gave it in charity on condition that it would not be sold, given away or inherited, and he assigned it to the poor, relatives, the freeing of slaves, the way of God, the traveller and the guest. Whoever managed it might eat from it in fairness and feed others, "without amassing wealth". When Ibn Sirin was told this, he explained it as "without accumulating property" ¹. Al-Bugha glosses "ask his counsel" as seeking advice, "precious" as finest and most pleasing, and "amassing" as hoarding money, and notes that Muslim also recorded it, in the book of bequests, chapter on waqf ¹.

In the book of bequests there is another report with a different chain. In the Prophet's lifetime Umar gave in charity a property of his called Thamgh, a palm grove. He said: Messenger of God, I have gained property that is precious to me and I want to give it in charity. The Prophet said: "Give its capital in charity: it is not to be sold, given away or inherited, but its fruit is to be spent." So Umar gave it for the way of God, the freeing of slaves, the needy, the guest, the traveller and relatives ⁴. Al-Bugha explains that Thamgh was land of Umar's facing Medina ⁵. Later al-Bukhari opens a chapter called "How a waqf is written", where he repeats the Khaybar hadith, and then a chapter on "Waqf for the rich, the poor and the guest" ⁶.

Umar was not alone. The TDV Encyclopedia records that the Prophet made lands of his in Medina and his shares of Fadak and Khaybar into charity; that Uthman ibn Affan bought the well of Ruma in Medina at the Prophet's prompting and gave it to all Muslims; that Khalid ibn al-Walid endowed his weapons and horses; that Ali ibn Abi Talib endowed land and a spring at Yanbu'; and that other Companions endowed houses and lands. Jabir ibn Abdullah is reported to have said that he knew of no man of means among the Emigrants and the Helpers who did not make a waqf; the report is in al-Khassaf ³.

Then the practice widened. The encyclopedia says that the salaries of mosque staff were at first paid from the treasury, and that the oldest known Egyptian document turning farmland into a charitable waqf is an Abbasid deed dated 307 AH (919 CE), as quoted from Ibn Duqmaq. It says the Umayyads set up in Egypt an office to supervise endowments called the Diwan al-Ahbas, thought to be the first central administration of its kind in Islamic history; a similar office was later set up in Basra; and the Abbasids created in Iraq an office for endowments and charitable works called the Diwan al-Birr ².

The sources read do not credit waqf to an "inventor". The museum records Umar ibn al-Khattab as the first known founder of a waqf in this form, that is, the man who set one up with his own property, not as its inventor: the formula itself, "hold back the capital and give the fruit in charity", came in the Prophet's words to Umar ^{1 4}. The museum does not record the Prophet as the "maker" of an invention; it reports what he did as this text describes.

Umar wrote his own conditions: the capital is not to be sold, given away or inherited; the yield goes to the groups he named; and the person who manages it may eat from it in fairness without turning it into wealth ¹. These three conditions, together with naming the purpose, the administrator and his pay, stayed at the heart of every endowment deed after him.

The founder creates a waqf with words that show his intent, naming the asset, the purpose, the administrator and his conditions. Jurists say that "the founder's condition is like the text of the Lawgiver": it is followed as written unless it goes against the law ³. The encyclopedia says the endowed asset cannot be sold, given away or made anyone's property, and that it is used and let according to the deed's conditions and at a fair rent ³.

The Hanafi masters disagreed on whether a waqf is binding. For Abu Hanifa a waqf is closer to a loan for use: the asset stays the founder's in law, and the waqf binds only if a judge rules so, if it is made as a bequest, or if it is a mosque or the like. For his two companions, Abu Yusuf and Muhammad ibn al-Hasan, the asset leaves the founder's ownership and passes into God's ownership, that is, public ownership. Their view is the one the school and Ottoman practice followed ³.

The encyclopedia says that, in history, waqf was not a single institution but a "system" with two parts: the charitable buildings that served people, such as the mosque, college, soup kitchen and fountain, and the income-producing property whose rent paid for them, such as shops, inns, baths and land. Founders of charities built commercial premises alongside them to cover salaries and upkeep, and this shaped the fabric and economy of the city. The Fatih complex in Istanbul, for example, was endowed with 4,250 shops in Istanbul and Galata, three commercial inns, four bathhouses, a covered market (bedesten) and 1,130 houses, all let for the waqf's account ².

When an asset fell into ruin or its income no longer covered its costs, the schools disagreed on exchanging it for another; most Hanafis were the most permissive, under conditions ³. The early Hanafis did not accept the endowment of cash, though a view allowing it was attributed to Zufar. It became official, binding practice in the Ottoman state after the Shaykh al-Islam Ebussuud issued a fatwa and an order permitting it in 1548 ².

The TDV Encyclopedia says the waqf system was found throughout the Muslim lands and used by every layer of society: rulers and ruled, townspeople and villagers, Muslims, Christians and Jews ². It records that in the Abbasid period some judges of Fustat inspected the waqfs of Muslims and of protected non-Muslims every month; that the Fatimid caliph al-Mu'izz moved ahbas funds into the treasury and abolished the endowment of farmland, but al-Hakim soon returned to the old practice. It records that Saladin, during the Crusades, founded many colleges and a large Sufi lodge (khanqah) to ransom captives, strengthen Sunni teaching and meet the needs of scholars, Sufis and new Muslims, and turned a large part of the treasury's lands into endowments for them ².

In Anatolia and the Balkans, waqf became a tool for building cities. The encyclopedia records that each of about three hundred Ottoman provinces (sanjaks) held about a thousand waqfs, and that the waqf budget reached a third of the state budget ².

The TDV Encyclopedia says that, although the philosophy of waqf is tied to the Qur'an's ideas of charity and good works, in law it rests on the practice of the Prophet and the Companions. The hadiths on charity and continuing charity, which are quoted in almost every endowment deed, carried the sense of permanence and obligation and played a large part in grounding, growing and spreading the Islamic waqf ². In its law section the encyclopedia cites Muslim's hadith that a person's deeds end at death except for three, the first being a continuing charity, and al-Bukhari's report that the Prophet left nothing but a riding animal, weapons and land that he made a charity ³.

• The Diwan al-Ahbas and the Diwan al-Birr. A central office for endowments set up by the Umayyads in Egypt, thought to be the first in Islamic history; then a similar office in Basra; then the Abbasid Diwan al-Birr in Iraq ².
• The oldest farmland endowment deed in Egypt. An Abbasid deed dated 307 AH (919 CE), cited by Ibn Duqmaq ².
• The endowed college. Endowment made colleges (madrasas) independent in learning, administration and finance. Many were founded as waqfs from the Seljuk period on, above all the Nizamiyya colleges, and endowments paid the teachers' and staff salaries and the students' needs. Al-Maqrizi counted 158 endowed colleges and mosques in Cairo in 1436 ².
• Soup kitchens, hospitals and fountains. Waqf built hospitals and the soup kitchens (imarets) that fed the poor: each of the imarets of Istanbul fed between 500 and 1,000 people a day, and in the eighteenth century more than thirty thousand ate in them daily. The fourteen imaret complexes built by Mimar Sinan employed 2,529 people ².
• The Ottoman cash waqf. It became official practice after Ebussuud's fatwa of 1548 ².
• The Ministry of Endowments and its modern successors. The Ottoman state created the Evkaf-ı Hümayun Nezareti in October 1826, after the abolition of the Janissaries under Mahmud II. In Egypt, Abbas Hilmi I created a waqf administration in 1851, which Khedive Isma'il raised to a ministry in 1864 ².

When Ibn Battuta reached Damascus from Cairo in 726 AH (1326 CE), he listed endowments for those unable to make the pilgrimage, for equipping the daughters of poor families for marriage, for ransoming captives, for feeding and clothing travellers and getting them home, and for repairing alleys and paving roads, as the TDV Encyclopedia relates ². The encyclopedia notes that waqf did not stop at people: small towers called "bird palaces" were built for birds, some of them resembling, with their minarets and domes, the mosques of the sultans; and the Austrian envoy Busbecq wrote in the 1550s that in Turkey everything had been made humane and gentle, even the animals ².

The endowed soup kitchen was a place where people ate without paying. The encyclopedia records that Hürrem Sultan, wife of Süleyman the Magnificent, built a soup kitchen in Jerusalem in 1551 where the rich ate as well as the poor ².

Waqf gave Muslim society a way to fund public services from private wealth rather than the state treasury. The TDV Encyclopedia says it deeply shaped the social, economic and cultural life of every Muslim land from the mid-eighth century to the late nineteenth, that it made colleges independent, and that successive states sometimes tried to lay hands on waqf funds but mostly protected them ².

In the nineteenth century the picture changed. The encyclopedia says the Western powers that occupied Muslim lands saw waqf as an obstacle to their colonial rule and described it as harmful to the economy, and a century was spent liquidating endowments and making them saleable. In Egypt the British abolished the Ministry of Endowments in 1884, and Lord Kitchener reformed its administration in 1913 ².

The sources read contain no claim crediting waqf to a particular non-Muslim; the debate they record concerns the origin of the institution, not Umar's waqf.

Sunni position. Al-Bukhari and Muslim report that the formula of waqf came in the Prophet's reply to Umar about the land at Khaybar ¹. The TDV Encyclopedia notes that the Hanafis call it waqf and the Shafi'is, Malikis and Zahiris call it habs, and that the disagreement between Abu Hanifa and his two companions was about whether it binds and whether the founder keeps ownership of the asset ³.

Academic position in TDV. The absence of the word waqf from the Qur'an opened a debate on the origin of the institution, and Muslims were influenced by the cultures they met; but in law waqf rests on the practice of the Prophet and the Companions, and from the eighth century it became a flexible and settled system ².

The museum does not decide between these views.

The TDV Encyclopedia says most waqfs disappeared as states changed, but an important part of them survived into the twentieth century and to this day. In Turkey the Ministry of Religious Law and Endowments, created in 1921, was abolished on 3 March 1924, and the administration of endowments passed to the institutions of the Republic ². The encyclopedia says archive-based studies in the second half of the twentieth century showed that waqf property was not frozen but moved as part of the market, through exchange (istibdal), allocation (irsad) and other means ².

The sources read know of nothing that survives of Umar's land at Khaybar or the palm grove of Thamgh. Among surviving written witnesses is the endowment deed of Haseki Hürrem Sultan, written in Istanbul in 964 AH (1556–1557 CE) and kept in the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts in Istanbul as number 2192; its image appears on this page. The source read does not say which of her endowments this particular deed records.

The word habs in the Maghrib, waqf in the Mashriq and vakıf in Turkish all became names for this institution ³. The TDV Encyclopedia says the hadiths on charity and continuing charity are quoted in almost every endowment deed through history ².

Umar ibn al-Khattab had a piece of land at Khaybar that he loved very much, so he asked the Prophet what he should do with it.

The Prophet told him: keep the land itself, and give what it grows to people ¹.

So Umar wrote that the land could never be sold, given away or inherited, and that its fruit was for the poor, travellers and guests. That is a waqf.

With this idea people later built schools, hospitals, fountains and kitchens that fed the hungry, and some of them kept working for hundreds of years ².

• Sahih al-Bukhari, ed. Muhammad Zuhayr al-Nasir with notes by Mustafa Dib al-Bugha, Dar Tawq al-Najat, scan pages 1207 (hadith 2737), 1222–1223 (hadith 2764), 1226 (hadith 2772). ¹
• TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, "VAKIF", law section (Hacı Mehmet Günay), vol. 42 (2012), online edition. ³
• TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, "VAKIF", history section (Bahaeddin Yediyıldız), vol. 42 (2012), online edition. ²