The new states of the modern Middle East eliminated, if not destroyed, the autonomy of awqaf (religious foundations, singular: waqf). Before the rise of Islamist parties, awqaf exercised sovereignty over land, law, welfare, and religion. They exercised sovereignty rooted in property rights and legal obligation rather than coercion, elections, or territorial monopoly. By dismantling their autonomy, often forcing them into state structures under a ministry of awqaf, states consolidated their own control.
In Islamic law, the waqf is a resilient concept. It secures property against state seizure, ensures that state patronage does not determine social welfare, and links religious duty with public welfare. When states destroyed awqaf, they absorbed their governing functions into bureaucratic institutions.
When states destroyed awqaf, they absorbed their governing functions into bureaucratic institutions.
Historically, awqaf did more than fund charity: They controlled land, financed education, and delivered welfare. Islamic legal doctrine shielded the assets of the waqf from confiscation and taxation, placing substantial resources beyond state reach. Through these mechanisms, awqaf enabled forms of governance autonomous from rulers, exercising authority in practice through independent financial control.
Before their modern form, awqaf performed core bureaucratic functions: They educated citizens, managed cities, arbitrated disputes, and delivered social services. States assimilated these roles into ministerial and bureaucratic structures. Departments assumed control from trustees. Budgets substituted for waqf disbursements. Police and administrators replaced Islamic jurists as the primary agents of governance. Modern bureaucracies replaced the waqf system. Ministries took over its revenues, personnel, and administrative tasks.
Awqaf nevertheless made impossible the state’s view of society. They resisted cadastral surveys and centralized record-keeping. Local trustees administered land without standardized registries. Income flowed through waqf deeds and legal obligations rather than through state treasuries. The awqaf administered welfare through a sense of obligation, rather than with records. Awqaf prevented states from counting populations and auditing resources. States believed it necessary, therefore, to dismantle awqaf to consolidate sovereignty.
Nineteenth-century reformers understood this. Ottoman rulers increased supervision over waqf courts and registries to normalize land recording. In Egypt, Muhammad Ali set up an authority to control awqaf when he appropriated large areas of waqf land. By seizing waqf lands, he also brought agricultural production under state assessment, imposed uniform land taxes, and compiled conscription registers that autonomous awqaf had previously kept beyond state reach. Because waqf lands were exempt from taxation and survey, autonomous waqfs obstructed state knowledge and limited state revenue.
Modern states dismantled awqaf not because they feared political Islam, but rather because they feared any autonomous governance outside state authority.
In Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk abolished the Ottoman Ministry of Religious Endowments in 1924. The Foundations Law of 1935 amalgamated disorganized endowments into auditable assets. The law replaced private trustees with state officials, imposed standardized accounting, and subjected waqf revenues to regular audits under the Directorate of Foundations. After 1952 in Egypt, nationalization brought waqf lands under centralized bureaucratic administration. Ministries recorded budgets, appointments, and sermons. State regulation rendered religion administratively legible. The Ministry of Awqaf appointed mosque personnel, controlled mosque finances, and required imams to deliver sermons aligned with state-approved themes.
Other countries did the same. The Tunisian government absorbed habous into the treasury to systemize regulation. The Saudi government centralized awqaf by organizing registration systems that made endowments subject to regulation. State centralization transformed the waqf into a regulatory instrument that retained the name but lost its substance.
This history has had an impact on Islamist movements. Modern states dismantled awqaf not because they feared political Islam, but rather because they feared any autonomous governance outside state authority. Still, Islamist parties emerged only after states dismantled autonomous religious economies. They attempted to gain influence through politics once their institutional authority disappeared. The impact of the hijacking, if not dissolution of, the awqaf remains one of the most overlooked aspects of the ongoing battle between autocrat and theocrat in the modern Middle East.
