Abstract
This chapter provides a critical overview of awqaf (Muslim religious endowments) and their social security supporting activities by exploring its current status in the law and society as well as in matters relating to social and human security. It deals with questions like how and why has it changed over the years? What has been the impact? The first section of the chapter provides an overview of awaqf in Muslim communities (including the concepts and features; the characteristics and classification; and the legal framework and management of awqaf), while the second deals with issues relating to waqf and human security. This section concludes that the waqf has a long legal and social tradition of offering human security services in the fields of education, health, and urban utilities; but due to misappropriation (primarily by certain private awqaf), and poor governance (primarily because of the traditional mutawalli primacy in the management), the glorious past of awqaf as a provider of vital human security services has, of late, got somewhat tainted. The chapter, inter alia, concludes that the role and likelihood of the existing waqf laws in maximising the potential contribution of awqaf in all aspects of human security are undermined by low governmental will and inadequate facilitative support.
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Notes
- 1.
Who spent his wealth in acts of charity, including the construction of the foremost altar in Arabia, the Ka-ba at Mecca (Fay, 1998: 2).
- 2.
- 3.
- 4.
There have been claims with evidences that “perpetuity” or “continuity” could be “analogous rather than actual.” There have been examples of awqaf providing a share of bequeathed agricultural land to orphans to plow and benefit from the crops, and bequesting grains to give to the farmers who could not afford seeds with conditions of returning the grains after the harvest so that another group can benefit from, and so forth (Hasan, 2007; Raissouni, 2001).
- 5.
Egypt in the early twentieth century limited the family waqf to a maximum of 60 years; and allowed the religious awqaf to be “perpetual” (Stibbard, Russel, & Bromley, 2012: 797). Many MMCs, like Syria, Lebanon, Morocco, etc. also have defined “perpetuity” in terms of two generations or a 100 year maximum (Hasan, 2007).
- 6.
Being advised by the Prophet, Umar bin Khattab (the second Caliph of Sunni Muslims) endowed the newly received prime land in Khaibar (including a garden of date palms called Thamag), with condition that the land and trees can neither be “sold nor be given as a present, nor be bequeathed, but the fruits are to be spent in charity” (Bukhari, 1971: 4:51:33-4) for Allah’s cause, for the emancipation of slaves, for the poor, for guests, for travellers, and for kinsmen (Bukhari, 1971: 4:51:26; 4:51:38); for more see, Hasan, 2007.
- 7.
www.muib.gov.bn, Last accessed on 20 May, 2013.
- 8.
www.awaqf.org, Last accessed on 22 May, 2013.
- 9.
The Prophet (pbuh) advised Muslims to go as far as to China (the farthest known land to the Arabs), if required, to seek knowledge.
- 10.
The importance of libraries and books reached a level that forced many fuqaha who usually do not consider waqf applicable to mobile assets to make an exception with regard to copies of the Qur’an and scientific books, so there is no disagreement among the fuqaha on the permissibility of making these two kinds of mobile assets into waqf (discussed in Kahf, 1998 from Zarqa, 1947: 48).
- 11.
“Madrasa” is an educational institution with emphasis on Islamic religious teaching.
- 12.
The University of Paris, by comparison, had the biggest library in Europe at that time with only 400 books (Othman, 2006: 101).
- 13.
www.mais.net.my, Last accessed on 26 May, 2013.
- 14.
www.maik.gov.my, Last accessed on 20 May, 2013.
- 15.
www.mainpp.gov.my, Last accessed on 26 May, 2013.
- 16.
www.maij.gov.my, Last accessed on 26 May, 2013.
- 17.
The family waqf rules allow the founder to become the administrator, giving him/her control of the endowment (Fay, 1998: 2).
- 18.
This should not undermine the fact that women were also members of their society and used to create awqaf for reasons linked not only to their gender or class but also in response to the social and economic conditions of the time (Fay, 1998).
- 19.
- 20.
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Khan, N.A., Jareen, S. (2015). The Waqf and Human Security in Muslim Majority Countries: Traditions, Modern Practices, and Challenges. In: Hasan, S. (eds) Human Security and Philanthropy. Nonprofit and Civil Society Studies. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2525-4_7
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