This paper explores the social and economic functions and legal parameters of the institution of waqf in late Ottoman Syria. The paper aims to answer two lingering questions in the literature on waqf: First, what roles did awqaf play in rural Syrian economies and industries in the nineteenth century? Second, how did the attempted imperial reforms to the institution of waqf play out in provinces like Syria that had strong local legal traditions as well as extensive property held by “family” waqfs ostensibly outside the jurisdiction of central agencies? The literature on waqf in the Ottoman empire is dominated not only by the idea that waqf was a stagnant institution, but that modernizing reforms successfully disempowered and defunded awqaf across the empire in the nineteenth century in a prelude to their official dismemberment in the early days of the Turkish Republic. Recent research has shown that waqf was a dynamic legal mechanism used for radically different economic goals in various Syrian locales in the nineteenth century. Waqf was also the legal foundation for the control and devolution of property required for expanding local industries from soap production to horticulture. At the same time, the attempts of central Ottoman agencies to gain greater control over the empire’s awqaf had decidedly varied results, with waqf remaining a dynamic institution in Syria into the Mandate period. To contribute to developing a more nuanced narrative of the role of waqf in the empire’s economic and social history, the paper relies on a close reading of orders sent from the Imperial Waqf Ministry in Istanbul to Syrian judges regarding how to adjudicate claims on particular awqaf, liason with waqf administrators or directly intervene in administration. The paper supplements this correspondence with civil and Sharia court records to argue that while waqf continued to play a dynamic and diverse role in nineteenth century Syrian economies, battles over who governed awqaf and their revenue intensified between various arms of the Ottoman bureaucracy. These contestations both involved more local actors in Ottoman bureaucratic operations and brought more extensive property into the purview of central state agencies, if not under their direct control.