Held in Trust

Description

New studies examining the religious endowments that have historically played a variety of important roles in Muslim communities
Waqfs (pious endowments) long held a crucial place in the political, economic, and social life of the Islamic world. Waqfs were major sources of education, health care, and employment; they shaped the city and contributed to the upkeep of religious edifices. They constituted a major resource, and their status was at stake in repeated struggles to impose competing definitions of legitimacy and community. Closer examination of the diverse legal, institutional, and practical aspects of waqfs in different regions and communities is necessary to a deeper understanding of their dynamism and resilience. This volume, which evolved from papers delivered at the 2005 American University in Cairo Annual History Seminar, offers a meticulous set of studies that fills a gap in our knowledge of waqf and its uses.

Sujets

• Musulmán
• Musulman
• Middle Est
• Histoire
• History
• Islam

Informations

• Publié par: The American University in Cairo Press
• Date de parution: 01 septembre 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781617975226
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published in 2011 by
The American University in Cairo Press
113 Sharia Kasr el Aini, Cairo, Egypt
420 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10018
www.aucpress.com
Copyright 2011 Pascale Ghazaleh
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Dar el Kutub No. 2367/10
eISBN: 978 977 416 393 7
Dar el Kutub Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ghazaleh, Pascale
Held in Trust: Waqf in the Islamic World/ Pascale Ghazaleh.-Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2011
p. cm.
ISBN 978 977 416 393 7
1. Islamic Law 2. Waqf I. Ghazaleh, Pascale (ed.) II. Title
297.14
1 2 3 4 5 6 14 13 12 11
Designed by Fatiha Bouzidi
Contents
Contributors
Introduction: Pious Foundations: From Here to Eternity?
Pascale Ghazaleh
1. Dervishes, Waqfs, and Conquest: Notes on Early Ottoman Expansion in Thrace
Riza Yildirim
2. Piety and Profit: The Haramayn Endowments in Egypt (1517-1814)
Husam Abd al-Mu ti
3. The Sadir al-Fuqaha wa-l-Fuqara Endowment (Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi) in Alexandria during the Eighteenth Century
Nasir Ibrahim
4. Control of Urban Waqfs in al-Salt, Transjordan
Michael J. Reimer
5. Zawiyat Sidi al-Ghazi: Survival of a Traditional Religious Institution
John A. Shoup
6. Guild Waqf: Between Religious Law and Common Law
Nelly Hanna
7. Waqfs of Cyrenaica and Italian Colonialism in Libya (1911-41)
Anna Maria Medici
8. The Waqf System: Maintenance, Repair, and Upkeep
Dina Ishak Bakhoum
9. The Role of Waqf in Shaping and Preserving Urban Areas: The Historical Commercial Center of Adana
Tuba Akar
Conclusion: Ottoman Waqfs as Acts of Citizenship
Engin F. Isin
Contributors
Husam Abd al-Mu ti is a professor in the Department of History at Beni Sueif University in Egypt. He has published extensively in Arabic. His publications includes al- Ilaqat al-misriya al-hijaziya fi-l-qarn al-thamin ashar (1999) and al- A ila wa-l-tharwa: al-buyut al-tijariya al-maghribiya fi Misr al- uthmaniya (2009). His research focuses on Ottoman Egypt.
Tuba Akar graduated from the Department of Architecture at ukurova University and received her MSc and PhD degrees from Middle East Technical University. Her areas of research and interest are conservation of architectural heritage, waqf and conservation, conservation of historical commercial buildings, and the legal, administrative, and financial aspects of conservation. She currently teaches design in restoration and conservation, architectural design, and graphic communication at the Department of Architecture, Mersin University, Turkey.
Dina Ishak Bakhoum is the conservation program manager at the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) in Egypt, where she has been working since 2004. She manages and coordinates a number of conservation and restoration projects in al-Darb al-Ahmar. Bakhoum holds an MA in Islamic Art and Architecture and a BSc in Construction Engineering and Management, both from the American University in Cairo, where she currently teaches courses in Islamic architecture and the conservation of the built heritage of Historic Cairo. Before joining AKTC she worked on several conservation projects in Historic Cairo and in the Theban Necropolis (Luxor) with the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE), the Theban Mapping Project, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and others.
Pascale Ghazaleh is an assistant professor of Middle East history in the Department of History at the American University in Cairo. She is the author of Fortunes urbaines et strat gies sociales: G n alogies patrimoniales au Caire, 1780-1830 (2010, 2 vols.). Her research interests include social networks, material culture, and legal praxis.
Nelly Hanna is a professor in the Department of Arab and Islamic Civilizations, American University in Cairo. She has authored and edited a number of works, including Artisan Entrepreneurs in Cairo and Early Modern Capitalism (1600-1800) (2011); In Praise of Books: A Cultural History of Cairo s Middle Class, 16th-18th Centuries (2003); Making Big Money in 1600: The Life and Times of Isma il Abu Taqiyya, Egyptian Merchant (1998); and Money, Land and Trade: An Economic History of the Muslim Mediterranean (ed., 2002). She has done pioneering research on the social, economic, and cultural history of Ottoman Egypt, and played a founding role in the emergence of a new school of Ottoman historiography.
Nasir Ibrahim teaches modern and contemporary history at Cairo University. He has been an active member of the Egyptian Historical Studies Association since 1992 and was active in helping to establish the association s Ottoman history seminar between 1997 and 2009. He has edited five volumes of the seminar s proceedings and has published several other works, including Social Crises in Egypt in the 17th Century and The French in Upper Egypt: The Financial Conflict (1798-1801) . He is interested in political, social, and economic changes in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Egypt.
Engin F. Isin holds a chair in citizenship and is professor of politics at the Faculty of Social Sciences, the Open University. He is the author of Cities Without Citizens: Modernity of the City as a Corporation (1992), Citizenship and Identity with Patricia K. Wood (1999), and Being Political: Genealogies of Citizenship (2002). He has co-edited with Bryan S. Turner and Peter Nyers, Citizenship Between Past and Future (2008) and with Greg Nielsen, Acts of Citizenship (2008). His latest book, Recasting the Social in Citizenship (2008), is about bridging social and political struggles over citizenship. Professor Isin is the principal investigator of Enacting European Citizenship (ENACT) and Citizenship after Orientalism (OECUMENE), both funded by the European Research Council.
Anna Maria Medici teaches at the University of Urbino, Italy, and is the author of Citt italiane sulla via della Mecca (2001). She has also edited Yemen 2010: La crisi e la sicurezza. Informazione e opinione pubblica in Europa e nel Golfo (2011) and Mondo arabo. Cittadini e Welfare sociale , special issue of Afriche e Orienti, vol. 1 (2008). Her main research interests are Muslim travelers in Italy, Islamic charitable trusts, welfare and social rights, and contemporary Islamic radicalism.
Michael J. Reimer is an associate professor of Middle East history in the Department of History at the American University in Cairo. His ongoing research and teaching interests include the history and historiography of Egypt; municipal administration, waqf foundations, and the dynamics of local politics in Transjordan; and Muslim-Christian relations. Recent publications include The Quest of the Historical Jesus at the American University in Cairo: A Progress Report, Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 21 (1): 23-28; and The Mansuri Collection at the Library of Congress: An Underutilized Resource for the Study of Muslim Religious, Intellectual, and Social History, Review of Middle East Studies 44 (1): 19-32.
John A. Shoup taught at the American University in Cairo from 1990 to 1996 and has taught at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco from 1996 to the present. He received his BA and MA in Middle Eastern Studies/Arabic from the University of Utah and his PhD in Cultural Anthropology from Washington University in St. Louis. He has authored and co-authored several articles and book chapters and is the author of Culture and Customs of Jordan (2007) and Culture and Customs of Syria (2008) and co-author of Saudi Arabia and Gulf Arab States Today: An Encyclopedia of Life in the Arab States (2009). He was part of a research team for the Baseline Survey conducted in the Middle Atlas region of Ifrane (2000) and on the impact of tourism in the Atlantic port city of Essaouira (2001-2002), published as Assessing Tourism in Essaouira (2002).
Riza Yildirim is assistant professor of Ottoman history at TOBB University of Economics and Technology (Turkey). His research concerns the history and religious beliefs and practices of the Alevi/Bektashi community, as well as other religious movements and trends in the Ottoman Empire. He has published research on the early phases of Alevi/Bektashi history and the formation of their religious institutions.
Introduction
Pious Foundations: From Here to Eternity?
Pascale Ghazaleh
F or centuries, w aqf s (endowments or foundations) were a crucial part of the political, economic, and social history of the Arab and Muslim world. As service-providing institutions, waqfs were a major source of education, health care, and employment. As urban landmarks, they shaped the city and contributed to the upkeep of religious edifices. 1 By definition, these endowments were conceived to generate income and therefore played a crucial role in both rural and urban economies, helping channel surplus from the countryside to the cities. Rulers and subjects, Christians, Muslims, and Jews alike, could establish them; their revenue, while ultimately intended for the community as a whole, could be directed toward private beneficiaries as well. Waqfs constituted a major resource and as such were a favorite target in reform efforts undertaken by various rulers: in that regard, their status and such related issues as ownership and entitlement were repeatedly at stake in struggles to impose competing definitions of legitimacy and community. These essays aim to show that waqf should be seen above all as a collection of specific practices that expressed the intentions of a wide variety of us