Draft: this lesson was written with AI help and has not yet been read by a human editor.
1 What your class asks
This lesson asks you to identify groups and organizations that work to improve quality of life and to describe what each focuses on. The museum links two historical institutions, not today's organizations: an endowment and a hospital. Groups and organizations at work today are for your class to bring from its own research. 1
Curriculum expectations, with their official codes
- B3.5 identify various groups and organizations that work to improve quality of life […], and describe their focus
2 The lesson
Who works for others' wellbeing, and with what?
Ask of each group or institution: who gives, who receives, what is it for, and how does the work continue?
Go deeper
Al-Bukhari reports from Nafi' from Ibn Umar that Umar ibn al-Khattab (may God be pleased with him) acquired land at Khaybar and came to the Prophet ﷺ to ask his counsel. The Prophet said: "If you wish, hold back its capital and give it in charity." So Umar gave it in charity on condition that it would not be sold, given away or inherited; whoever managed it might eat from it in fairness 2. The record on the Adudi Bimaristan, a hospital in Baghdad, says endowments were set for those who stayed in it, and the poor were given the clothing and vessels that left it 3. The TDV Encyclopedia says that in the Abbasid period some judges of Fustat inspected waqfs every month, and that the Fatimid caliph al-Mu'izz moved ahbas funds into the treasury, but al-Hakim soon returned to the old practice 4.
Two views
The Hanafi masters disagreed on whether a waqf is binding 5. For Abu Hanifa a waqf is closer to a loan for use: the asset stays the founder's in law, and the waqf binds only if a judge rules so, if it is made as a bequest, or if it is a mosque or the like. For his two companions, Abu Yusuf and Muhammad ibn al-Hasan, the asset leaves the founder's ownership and passes into God's ownership, that is, public ownership. Their view is the one the school and Ottoman practice followed 5.
Think about it
The report asks the manager to take from the endowment only in fairness, and the record says judges inspected waqfs monthly while a caliph once moved their funds to the treasury. Why might an endowment need inspectors as well as a founder's conditions, and what would you need to see in the records to know whether a hospital's endowment kept to its purpose?
Into the museum
- Waqf: Umar's formula, the Hanafi differences and what was built on endowments.
- The Adudi Bimaristan: the Baghdad hospital and what was gathered in it.
- The sabil: a public fountain endowed to give people water every day.
- Umar ibn al-Khattab: the first known founder of a waqf in this form, in the record's words.
Try this
Read Waqf and the Adudi Bimaristan. Fill a two-row table under the headings: who gives, who receives, what it is for.
3 Carry it further
Where this lesson leads in the museum.
4 Check yourself
Nothing here is marked or sent anywhere. It is for you.
In your own words: what does Waqf: the endowment that keeps the principal and gives the yield have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
A gift that keeps working. A waqf is an act by which an owner locks the capital of a property away from sale, gift and inheritance, and gives its yield to a good cause for ever. The TDV encyclopedia says that from the mid-eighth to the late nineteenth century this system founded and ran most of the mosques, colleges, hospitals, fountains and soup kitchens of Muslim cities. How does such a gift keep working?
In your own words: what does The 'Adudi Bimaristan have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
A hospital with endowments. Ibn al-Jawzi's history records the hospital built in Baghdad by the Buyid Adud al-Dawla, opened at the beginning of Rabi II 372 AH. Physicians, medicines, stewards, servants, vessels and clothing were gathered there, endowments were set for those who stayed in it, and the poor were given the clothing and vessels that left it. What kept the hospital supplied?
I can now
Notes
- 1. The Ontario Curriculum: Social Studies, Grades 1 to 6; History and Geography, Grades 7 and 8 (2023)
- 2. Sahih al-Bukhari (al-Bugha edition), p. 1207
- 3. al-Muntazam fi Tarikh al-Muluk wa'l-Umam — Ibn al-Jawzi, j.7 p.119
- 4. VAKIF — TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (Hacı Mehmet Günay, Bahaeddin Yediyıldız), §history
- 5. VAKIF — TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (Hacı Mehmet Günay, Bahaeddin Yediyıldız), §fiqh