The Turkish scholar and jurist defined the endowment linguistically as imprisonment, silence and prevention, and from a legal point of view there is a difference between the jurists in defining the endowment, stressing that the definition of the term in general means “imprisonment of the eye in the rule of the king of God Almighty and disbursing its benefit to the one who loves the endowment.”

And he said in his talk to an episode of “Shari’ah and Life in Ramadan” episode (29/2022) that there is a very big difference between zakat and endowment. A person shall be recompensed for it if he does it, but he is not punished if he does not.

Waqf may sometimes be hated and forbidden if it is the way of sin.

He pointed out that the endowment has conditions and controls that the jurists and scholars have elaborated on through books that filled the Islamic library.

The idea of ​​the endowment dates back to before Islam, and the evidence is that Imam Abu Hanifa said that it is not permissible to sell the lands of Mecca because our master Ibrahim endowed them.

The endowment acquired its true meaning in Islam, and the Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, was the first to make the endowment, as the Quba Mosque, which he founded in Medina, is the first mosque that was endowed in Islam, and the Prophet’s Mosque is also considered an endowment.

According to Dr. Mustafa Boland Dadash, the Companions were racing to do good deeds when they heard from the Holy Prophet, including Caliph Omar Ibn Al-Khattab, may God be pleased with him, who hit a land in Khaybar and went to the Holy Prophet to tell him that he wanted to give alms on this land as long as God Almighty commands Muslims to give alms And he did good deeds, but the Messenger instructed him to make it a waqf.

The decline of the endowment role

He pointed out that the endowment has a very big role in the development of society and the dissemination of Sharia and other sciences, and the Companions, may God be pleased with them, were keen to spread knowledge and established schools for this purpose, and the ancestors continued to perform the same task, and the guest of the episode of the “Shariah and Life in Ramadan” program referred to the role of the Ottoman Empire The sultans and their wives set up endowments to help the poor, such as schools and factories.

In the past, people's endowments were taken over by the trustee chosen by the endowment owner, but in the following eras - as the Turkish scholar and jurist asserts - the task was entrusted to the endowment institution managed by official institutions, and the purpose was to preserve the endowment.

Regarding the decline in the role of the endowment in the lives of Muslims in recent times, the Vice-President of the Supreme Council for Religious Affairs in Turkey regretted this reality, and said that endowments that were previously in Islamic countries were looted and raped, and only a few of them returned, and called for the need to recover these endowments through a procedure Research and field studies on previous endowments.

He appealed to researchers, specialists and university doctors to pay attention to this issue.