Awqaf: endowments for the public good

A waqf is property set aside, usually for ever: the asset is held back and its income goes to a named cause. It rests on the Prophet’s ﷺ advice to Umar about his land at Khaybar. For centuries waqfs paid for wells, schools, hospitals, kitchens, inns and bridges, until colonial laws in Algeria and India broke many up.

Hold back the root, give the fruit

Waqf means “holding back”: the asset can never be sold, given away or inherited. The plural is awqaf; in North Africa it is called habous.

Umar’s land at Khaybar

Ibn Umar reports that his father received land at Khaybar, his most precious property, and asked the Prophet ﷺ what to do with it.

Al-Nasa’i’s wording is shorter: hold back its root and dedicate its fruit (Nasa’i 3603, sahih (al-Albani)). Al-Tirmidhi knew of no disagreement among the early scholars that land may be made a waqf (Tirmidhi 1375, sahih (al-Albani)).

Charity that keeps flowing

Abu Hurayrah reports:

Continuing charity, sadaqah jariyah, did much to ground and spread the waqf, notes the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi. TDV stands for Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı, the Turkish Diyanet Foundation. A longer list in Ibn Majah adds a mosque, a house for travellers and a canal (Ibn Majah 242, hasan (al-Albani); da’if (Zubair Ali Zai)).

The well of Rumah

Madinah had little sweet water after the Hijrah. In 656, besieged in his house, Uthman reminded the crowd of the Prophet’s ﷺ words:

“So I bought it with the core of my wealth,” he told them. Al-Albani grades al-Nasa’i’s version higher (Nasa’i 3608, sahih (al-Albani); hasan (Zubair Ali Zai)).

TDV calls it one of the first waqfs in Islam. It was restored in 1349, and from 1630-31 it had a small mosque and lodged strangers and the poor.

Mukhayriq’s seven gardens

Ibn Ishaq reports that Mukhayriq, a Jewish man of Madinah, said at Uhud in 625 that if he was killed, his wealth was for Muhammad ﷺ to use as he wished. He was killed that day.

Ibn Kathir quotes al-Suhayli (died 1185) that the Prophet ﷺ made the seven gardens awqaf. Muhammad ibn Ka’b al-Qurazi, of the generation after the Companions, called them Madinah’s first waqf. Neither statement goes back to the Prophet ﷺ.

A hadith behind every kind of giving

Founders wrote their causes into a waqf deed, and TDV notes that nearly every deed quotes the hadiths on charity and continuing charity.

Animals

The Prophet ﷺ told of a man who filled his shoe from a well for a dog eating mud from thirst. Allah thanked him and forgave him.

Roads, travellers and the sick

A man who moved a thorny branch off a path was forgiven for it (Muslim 1914, sahih (Muslim)), and removing harm from the road is sadaqah (Bukhari 2989, sahih (al-Bukhari)). Righteousness, the Qur’an says, includes one who:

“Feed the hungry, visit the sick, and set free the captives” (Bukhari 5649, sahih (al-Bukhari)). “Whoever fulfilled the needs of his brother, Allah will fulfill his needs” (Bukhari 2442, sahih (al-Bukhari)).

The dates

1. 625 Mukhayriq leaves his wealth to the Prophet ﷺ.
2. After 628 Umar endows his land at Khaybar.
3. 859 The Qarawiyyin mosque is built in Fez.
4. 1154 Nur al-Din founds his hospital in Damascus.
5. 1577-78 The Višegrad bridge is built as a charitable work.
6. 1826 Mahmud II founds an Ottoman ministry of awqaf.
7. 1830 French decrees begin to take over the habous of Algiers.
8. 1873 The Warnier law in Algeria.
9. 1913 British India’s Mussalman Wakf Validating Act.

Some of the oldest awqaf

Al-Qarawiyyin, Fez, 859

TDV records that Fatima, daughter of the Kairouan jurist Muhammad al-Fihri, built the mosque in 245 AH (after the Hijrah), or 859. The account comes from later works such as Ibn Abi Zar’s, written in Fez more than 400 years later.

Awqaf funded its upkeep and teaching, and by the 12th century their income reached 60,000 dinars a year. In 1349 Sultan Abu Inan endowed books for a library there, and Ibn Khaldun sent a copy of his history to be endowed to it (TDV).

Hospitals and water

Nur al-Din founded his hospital in Damascus in 1154, and about 30 years later Ibn Jubayr saw its doctors make rounds every morning (TDV). Charity also ran water to pilgrims: in 828 Zubaydah, widow of Harun al-Rashid, brought spring water to Arafat and Makkah (TDV).

Damascus in 1326: a waqf for broken dishes

Ibn Battutah, in Damascus for Ramadan 726 AH (August 1326), found its awqaf too many to count. They paid for Hajj on behalf of those who could not, prepared brides from poor families, freed captives, fed and clothed travellers and sent them home, and paved the streets.

In an alley he saw a young slave drop a Chinese porcelain dish. Passers-by sent him with the pieces to the overseer of the waqf for vessels, who paid for a new one. The boy’s master would have beaten him, Ibn Battutah explains, so this waqf was a mending of hearts.

Ottoman lands: a waqf for almost everything

Ottoman waqfs paid for mosques, schools, fountains, roads, lighthouses and caravanserais (TDV). Some endowed seed wheat for poor farmers, milk animals for poor families or wedding dresses for poor girls. Others paid the extraordinary taxes, the avarız, owed by a village or quarter.

Kitchens and inns

The deed of Mehmed II’s complex in Istanbul, built 1463-1470, set out its imaret, the public kitchen: rice soup in the morning, a wheat dish in the evening, and a man to wipe improper writing off the walls. TDV estimates that large imarets fed 1,000 to 2,000 people a day.

Earlier, in 13th-century Seljuk caravanserais in Anatolia, travellers were the founder’s guests for three days and paid nothing. One deed required food, shoes and fodder for travellers of every class and religion (TDV).

Bridges and hospitals

Sinan built the bridge over the Drina at Višegrad, in Bosnia, for the grand vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha. Its inscription calls it a charitable work and dates it 985 AH (1577-78), though some read 979 (1571-72), and Sokollu’s waqf deed names it (TDV).

Hafsa Sultan’s hospital in Manisa opened in 1539. Its deed names a chief physician, a surgeon, two eye doctors, a specialist in mental illness, two pharmacists and four nurses (TDV).

Animals and money

TDV counts bird houses, some shaped like tiny mosques, among the charitable works, and quotes the Habsburg envoy Busbecq in the 1550s: in Turkey everything had grown humane and gentle, even the animals. A stork hospital in Bursa is often mentioned, but we found no early source for it.

Ottomans also endowed cash. Classical Hanafi doctrine did not allow it while the Malikis did. In 1548 Shaykh al-Islam Ebussuud Efendi ruled it lawful, relying on a view reported from Imam Zufar and on custom, and his contemporary Birgivi opposed it (TDV).

How large it was

TDV gives figures for 1530-1540: 17% of the revenue of the province of Anatolia went to waqfs, 15.7% in the Ottoman province of Rum, and 14% in Karaman and in Aleppo and Damascus, though only about 5% in Dulkadir. These count farmland only. By another calculation it cites, waqf budgets reached a third of the state’s.

Nazif Öztürk puts the waqf share of Turkish employment and economic life at around 16% even in the 19th century. Under the Mamluks (1250-1517), nearly half of Egypt’s farmland had become waqf (TDV).

India: what the records show

The historian Sirajul Islam lists the kinds of lakhiraj, or revenue-free, land in Bengal, from pirottar for Sufi lodges to brahmottar for Brahmanical establishments (Banglapedia). He gives no share of the whole, only that the Amini Commission of 1776 found “a significant part” of revenue lands held rent-free by grantees of various kinds, and not all of it was waqf. (The nearest figure, for Bengal only, is from the British official W. W. Hunter in 1871: the revenue officer James Grant had estimated a quarter of the province “transferred from the State” as rent-free grants to mosques and temples alike, which Hunter called a fraud.)

Resumption in Bengal, 1793-1840

Regulations of 1793 made holders produce their deeds, and from 1822 until 1840 the government took back land it judged unlawfully granted, mostly held by Muslims (Sirajul Islam). (Hunter, who dates the special courts to 1828-1846, records that at a cost of £800,000 the state gained £300,000 a year, much of it from Muslim holders and foundations. Muslim education, he wrote, “almost entirely maintained by rent-free grants, received its death-blow”.)

Haji Muhammad Mohsin of Hugli made his waqf deed in 1806. After embezzlement by its trustees, the government took over the fund in 1818 (Banglapedia). (Hunter, writing in 1871, says £5,000 a year went to an English college and only £350 of the fund’s £5,260 income to a small Muslim school.)

Colonial rule and the awqaf

Bahaeddin Yediyıldız, in TDV, argues that 19th-century occupiers saw the waqf as an obstacle to colonisation. From Algeria to India, he writes, a century passed in new laws to make waqf property saleable and pass it to them.

They argued, from the word’s meaning of “holding back”, that the waqf harmed the economy. Archival research in the later 20th century, he adds, showed that waqf property was never frozen: through exchange (istibdal) and other lawful means it changed hands within the market. Murat Çizakça notes what was at stake: awqaf had supplied essential services “at no cost to the state”.

Algeria, 1830-1843

Salah Himeur’s doctoral thesis at the University of Batna sets out the steps. By the accounts he cites, the largest waqf in Algiers, for the Two Holy Mosques, sent half its income to the poor of Makkah and Madinah and gave the rest to the poor of Algiers every Thursday morning.

The surrender of Algiers on 5 July 1830 promised to respect the people’s religion and property. Decrees of 8 September and 7 December 1830 began to bring habous under the French Domaine, which came to manage some 2,000 waqfs. On 23 March 1843 waqf institutions were annexed to the state, and their spending, from mosque upkeep to religious staff and teaching, moved into the colonial budget.

Algeria: opened to sale, 1844-1873

The ordinance of 1 October 1844, Himeur writes, set out to break the barriers to land passing to Europeans, above all the rule that habous could not be sold. No sale to a European, whatever its date, could now be challenged on that ground, and habous made up half the farmland around the main cities.

A decree of 3 October 1848 took the property of mosques, zawiyas and religious schools. One of 30 October 1858 made habous saleable even to Muslim buyers. The Warnier law of 26 July 1873 was, in Himeur’s words, the decisive blow, for the benefit of European settlement.

British India, 1894-1913

In 1894 the Privy Council in London, in Abul Fata Mahomed Ishak v. Russomoy Dhur Chowdhry, held a family waqf invalid where the gift to the poor was illusory or remote. Mahboob Popatia records that Muhammad Ali Jinnah moved a bill in 1911 to undo the hardship this caused. The Mussalman Wakf Validating Act became law on 7 March 1913.

The Ottoman ministry, 1826

Earlier Muslim rulers sometimes reached for waqf funds, TDV notes, but on the whole they protected the waqfs. In 1826 Mahmud II founded a ministry of awqaf, which took over most Ottoman waqfs in the years that followed.

Nazif Öztürk (TDV) describes the treasury then collecting their income, seizing surpluses and deferring 15% of revenue, until thousands of charitable buildings fell into ruin. He ties this to Western encouragement and pressure: Europeans wanted waqf land made saleable and usable as security for loans.

One thing to do this week: learn by heart the hadith of the three deeds that continue after death (Muslim 1631, sahih (Muslim)), and teach it to someone at home.

Read next: How the caliphs protected Muslims.

Sources

1. Ibn Battutah, Tuhfat al-Nuzzar fi Ghara’ib al-Amsar (the Rihla), vol. 1, pp. 47-48: the awqaf of Damascus and the broken dish (Arabic, Wikisource). https://ar.wikisource.org/wiki/%D8%AA%D8%AD%D9%81%D8%A9_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%86%D8%B8%D8%A7%D8%B1_%D9%81%D9%8A_%D8%BA%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%A6%D8%A8_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D9%85%D8%B5%D8%A7%D8%B1_%D9%88%D8%B9%D8%AC%D8%A7%D8%A6%D8%A8_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D8%B3%D9%81%D8%A7%D8%B1/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D8%B2%D8%A1_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D9%88%D9%84/%D9%81%D8%B5%D9%84:%D8%B0%D9%83%D8%B1_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D9%88%D9%82%D8%A7%D9%81_%D8%A8%D8%AF%D9%85%D8%B4%D9%82_%D9%88%D8%A8%D8%B9%D8%B6_%D9%81%D8%B6%D8%A7%D8%A6%D9%84_%D8%A3%D9%87%D9%84%D9%87%D8%A7_%D9%88%D8%B9%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%A6%D8%AF%D9%87%D9%85 and https://ar.wikisource.org/wiki/%D8%AA%D8%AD%D9%81%D8%A9_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%86%D8%B8%D8%A7%D8%B1_%D9%81%D9%8A_%D8%BA%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%A6%D8%A8_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D9%85%D8%B5%D8%A7%D8%B1_%D9%88%D8%B9%D8%AC%D8%A7%D8%A6%D8%A8_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D8%B3%D9%81%D8%A7%D8%B1/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D8%B2%D8%A1_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D9%88%D9%84/%D8%B5%D9%81%D8%AD%D8%A9:_48
2. Ibn Kathir, al-Bidayah wa al-Nihayah, vol. 4, on Uhud: Ibn Ishaq’s report of Mukhayriq, with al-Suhayli and Muhammad ibn Ka’b al-Qurazi on his seven gardens (Arabic, Wikisource). https://ar.wikisource.org/wiki/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A8%D8%AF%D8%A7%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%86%D9%87%D8%A7%D9%8A%D8%A9/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D8%B2%D8%A1_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%A8%D8%B9/%D9%81%D8%B5%D9%84_%D9%81%D9%8A_%D8%A3%D9%88%D9%84_%D9%85%D9%86_%D8%B9%D8%B1%D9%81_%D8%B1%D8%B3%D9%88%D9%84_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%84%D9%87_%D8%A8%D8%B9%D8%AF_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%87%D8%B2%D9%8A%D9%85%D8%A9_%D9%83%D8%B9%D8%A8_%D8%A8%D9%86_%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%83
3. Hacı Mehmet Günay and Bahaeddin Yediyıldız, “Vakıf”, TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 42 (Istanbul, 2012), pp. 475-486: the hadiths behind waqf and their place in nearly every deed, movable and cash waqfs, Ebussuud’s ruling of 1548 and its basis, Birgivi, Ibn Battutah’s list, Seljuk caravanserais, bird houses and Busbecq, avarız waqfs, the figures for 1530-1540 and the third of the budget, Mamluk Egypt, and the colonial attack “from Algeria to India” (Turkish). https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/vakif
4. İsmail Yiğit, “Osman”, TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 33 (Istanbul, 2007), pp. 438-443: the siege of his house and his death on 18 Dhu al-Hijjah 35 AH (17 June 656) (Turkish). https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/osman
5. Mustafa Sabri Küçükaşçı, “Rûme Kuyusu”, TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 35 (Istanbul, 2008), pp. 231-232 (Turkish). https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/rume-kuyusu
6. Abdülhâdî et-Tâzî, “Karaviyyîn Camii”, TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 24 (Istanbul, 2001), pp. 478-479, citing Ibn Abi Zar’, al-Anis al-Mutrib, and Ibn Khaldun, Muqaddimah, I, 290 (Turkish). https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/karaviyyin-camii
7. Arslan Terzioğlu, “Bîmâristan”, TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 6 (Istanbul, 1992), pp. 163-178: Nur al-Din’s hospital and Ibn Jubayr, Hafsa Sultan’s hospital (Turkish). https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/bimaristan
8. Gülgün Uyar, “Zübeyde bint Ca’fer”, TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 44 (Istanbul, 2013), pp. 517-519 (Turkish). https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/zubeyde-bint-cafer
9. Zeynep Tarım Ertuğ, “İmaret” (Ottoman), TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 22 (Istanbul, 2000), pp. 219-220: the Fatih deed, meals and numbers fed (Turkish). https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/imaret--osmanli
10. Semavi Eyice, “Fâtih Camii ve Külliyesi”, TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 12 (Istanbul, 1995), pp. 244-249: building from March 1463 to December 1470 (Turkish). https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/fatih-camii-ve-kulliyesi
11. Şebnem Akalın Eryavuz, “Kervansaray”, TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 25 (Ankara, 2022), pp. 299-302 (Turkish). https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/kervansaray
12. Semavi Eyice, “Drina Köprüsü”, TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 9 (Istanbul, 1994), pp. 528-529 (Turkish). https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/drina-koprusu
13. Nazif Öztürk, “Evkāf-ı Hümâyun Nezâreti”, TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 11 (Istanbul, 1995), pp. 521-524: the ministry of 1826, the treasury and waqf revenues, and the 16% share in the 19th century (Turkish). https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/evkaf-i-humayun-nezareti
14. Salah Himeur, al-Siyasah al-’Aqariyyah al-Faransiyyah fi al-Jaza’ir 1830-1930 (doctoral thesis, University of Batna, 2013-2014), on the habous of Algiers, Clauzel’s partial retreat in 1830, and the measures of 1830, 1843, 1844 (Article 3), 1848, 1858 and 1873 (Arabic). https://archive.org/details/ktp2019-tra6867
15. Sirajul Islam, “Lakhiraj”, Banglapedia: the kinds of rent-free grant, the Regulations of 1793, the resolution of 1822 and the end of resumption in 1840. https://en.banglapedia.org/index.php/Lakhiraj
16. Muhammad Ansar Ali, “Mohsin, Haji Muhammad”, Banglapedia: the deed of 1806, the trustees’ embezzlement and the takeover of 1818. https://en.banglapedia.org/index.php/Mohsin,_Haji_Muhammad
17. W. W. Hunter, The Indian Musalmans, 2nd edition (London: Trübner, 1872; first published 1871), pp. 184-189: James Grant’s estimate, resumption from 1828, and the Hugli endowment. https://archive.org/details/indianmusalmans00hunt
18. Mahboob A. Popatia, “Quaid-i-Azam and Wakf-ul aulad Law”, Pakistan Perspectives 17, no. 2 (2012). https://journal.psc.edu.pk/index.php/pp/article/view/195
19. The Mussalman Wakf Validating Act, 1913 (Act VI of 1913), 7 March 1913: preamble and statement of objects and reasons, which names the Privy Council decision. https://www.lawyersclubindia.com/section/short-title-and-extent-27904.asp
20. “The Mussalman Wakf Validating Act, 1913: a legal analysis”, CaseMine: Abul Fata Mahomed Ishak v. Russomoy Dhur Chowdhry (1894) L.R. 22 I.A. 76 and its holding. https://www.casemine.com/in/column/the-mussalman-wakf-validating-act,-1913:-a-legal-analysis/view
21. Murat Çizakça, “Awqaf in History and Its Implications for Modern Islamic Economies”, Islamic Economic Studies 6 (1998), pp. 43-70. https://ideas.repec.org/a/ris/isecst/0092.html
22. International Islamic Fiqh Academy, Resolution 140 (6/15) on the investment of waqf, Muscat, 6-11 March 2004. https://iifa-aifi.org/en/32887.html

Qur’an and hadith on this page

• Qur’an 2:177
• Bukhari 2363, sahih (al-Bukhari)
• Bukhari 2442, sahih (al-Bukhari)
• Bukhari 2737, sahih (al-Bukhari)
• Bukhari 2989, sahih (al-Bukhari)
• Bukhari 5649, sahih (al-Bukhari)
• Muslim 1631, sahih (Muslim)
• Muslim 1632, sahih (Muslim)
• Muslim 1914, sahih (Muslim)
• Muslim 2244, sahih (Muslim)
• Tirmidhi 1375, sahih (al-Albani)
• Tirmidhi 3703, hasan (al-Albani)
• Nasa’i 3603, sahih (al-Albani)
• Nasa’i 3608, sahih (al-Albani); hasan (Zubair Ali Zai)
• Ibn Majah 242, hasan (al-Albani); da’if (Zubair Ali Zai)