ABSTRACT
At a time when the waqf institution tended towards extinction in most Muslim countries, it continued to occupy an important place among the Muslims of Mandatory Palestine. A creation of the old social order in Islam, it had a vital function as a voluntary institution in medieval Muslim society. It filled a void left by the concept of the role of the state by providing the population with public services and with a lever for economic development. It also met various needs in the lives of individuals and families. It reached its peak in the Ottoman empire, when three-quarters of all cultivated land had waqf status and most municipal institutions were funded by waqf resources. Since the nineteenth century, however, the waqf has receded to the point of being abolished in several Muslim countries. Its central importance first began to decline with the introduction of Ottoman reforms in the nineteenth century. Inasmuch as reform measures related to the waqf, they were meant to adapt it to the evolving socio-economic conditions of modern times. Public criticism of the waqf in the modern era spoke of it as an embodiment of the constraints of the old social order, and therefore subject to reforms. It was identified with an elite – the ʿulamāʾ – that modern regimes attempted to weaken by redistributing waqf resources among diverse population groups (as happened in Egypt, for example). Waqfs were regarded (unjustifiably so, as this study shows) as neglectful of their properties and as holding back economic development and agrarian reform, thereby harming the economy as a whole. They were also perceived as an institution riddled with corruption. This included the qāḍīs who were supposed to exercise the power of supervision. Finally, the family waqf was perceived as a ruse to circumvent Islamic inheritance laws – the commands Allāh and his prophet had handed down in the Qurʾān and the Sunna.
