ABSTRACT
In the first part of the chapter categories and methods are discussed, in order to be able to examine cultural contact and transfer. The second part of the chapter applies these theoretical thoughts to the processes of cultural contact and transfer through the institution of Christian foundations in the Arabic world. Numerous church and monastic foundations are attested from the early Islamic period in Syria and Egypt. The focus is on the question of how the legal phenomenon of the Christian foundation developed under the conditions of Islamic rule, so that from the thirteenth century the quite paradoxical institution of the Christian waqf formed.
