Waqf

A waqf is an inalienable charitable endowment recognized under Islamic law, established when a donor, the waqif, permanently dedicates an asset such as land or a building to a religious or charitable purpose, after which the property is treated in Islamic legal tradition as belonging to God and must be used to serve the specified public or family charitable need rather than being sold, inherited, or otherwise reclaimed. The endowment is administered by a trustee, the mutawalli, who manages the property and receives a share of the revenue it generates, a structure that has allowed waqf-funded institutions, including mosques, madrasas, and hospitals, to provide social services across Islamic societies while helping to preserve significant cultural and historical sites. Although the Quran contains no direct injunction establishing the waqf, the practice is traditionally grounded in multiple hadiths attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, with tradition holding that the first waqf was a grove of date palms endowed after the Hijrah to feed the poor of Medina; the formal Islamic legal form of the institution developed during the ninth century CE, and the oldest surviving waqfiyya, or endowment deed, dates to 876 CE. A valid waqf must satisfy three core conditions: its principal remains permanently sequestered with its proceeds directed to the charitable purpose, the endowed property is removed from ordinary market transactions, and it identifies specific beneficiaries for its exclusively charitable use, and the endowed assets can be either movable, such as money or shares, or immovable, such as land or buildings.