Not Yet Fully Understood Divine Status of Waqf and Its Social Welfare Role

The life and soul of waqf is charity. The only distinguishing feature which waqf has adopted is to place certain conditions restraining the mode and duration of its enjoyment. Several verses of the Quran explain charity. Since waqf and charity are coterminous, it becomes obvious that waqf finds a mention in the Quran, even though indirectly. However, this relationship is completely un-noticed when the origin of waqf is exclusively tasted in Hadiths, thus downgrading its divine status. It emboldened jurists and states to treat recklessly laws relating to family waqf, cash waqf and perpetuity, thereby seriously injuring the social welfare potential of waqf. It is indeed surprising to find a complete failure of Islamic jurists and orientalists to notice the divine status of waqf even when it is evident from at least fifty-nine (59) Quranic verses, thereby its religious ranking in the eyes of the common Muslim. This enabled the jurists and the States to tinker with waqf without fearing a public rebuke or backlash. The law of waqf was made a plaything, converting it into a minefield of conflicting views of jurists of various schools, whose obsession with their views brought a devaluation of the sanctity of waqf laws. This would never have happened if the Quranic origin of waqf was properly projected and acknowledged. For Muslims, Quran occupies the highest place of honour. If something is “mentioned” either directly or indirectly in the Quran, it gets elevated to a high pedestal in Muslim’s mind. Once this fact stands firmly is, neither a jurist nor the State, would have dated to go against the basic ideology of waqf which is social welfare in its widest sense. We will investigate this a little later, but let us explore the prevailing missplaces notion of the origin of waqf.