Waqf and Financing Islamic Education

Abstract

The institution of waqf (religious endowment), an act of establishment of a charitable trust, often in a form of a property or any legitimate fund-generating estate – for which public utilities are designated as beneficiaries of the yields, among other purposes – laid the cornerstone of an independent means of financing for education across the Muslim world. Such an independent economic means contributed greatly to the autonomy of the research and scholarly works among the Muslims. While waqf was to guarantee and maintain the independence of the research and autonomy of the researchers and scholars, the relationships with the state and power apparatus has been far from straightforward. In its endeavor to gain control over education, the state patronized some madrasahs by giving them waqf and other financial resources and status while others were neglected. Over time this resulted in an effective state control of madrasahs and other educational institutions, which were used to promulgate state ideology and legitimize one particular religious faction over others. The patronage of madrasahs also provided the government with a vital piece of ideological armor. The dominance of ‘ulamā’ over education in need of waqf to finance madrasahs across the Muslim world forced them to ultimately support the governments as the custodians of waqf and other religious taxes. This facilitated a good relation between madrasah and the state. In this way, the ‘ulamā’ were confident to have secured the support for madrasah while the government was assured to have the favorable consensus of ‘ulamā’ on its side. Meanwhile, despite the dominance of state over waqf in almost all countries in the Muslim world, a small number of waqf-based institutions continued to function independently and produced a great body of independent research and scholarship.