The growing field of Ottoman studies encompasses a multitude of research into the Empire’s institutions including that of the waqf. This panel explores topics related to the establishment and practices in relation to waqfs in eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Ottoman domain.
The first presentation analyses the implications of the establishment and management of waqfs by females in the Ottoman Province of Tripoli, in modern day Lebanon, in the second half of the eighteenth century; the main argument of the presentation is that female endowers achieved a worldly as well as a religious objective when establishing waqfs, forging in the process tight connections to the very influential body of ‘ulama’, who were salaried employees of these waqfs, and bolstering female endowers’ social status, particularly vis-à-vis the Islamic shari‘a court. Participants will also discuss the transition and shifting legal structures of the waqf in Crimea following the Russian annexation in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Another presentation would look into the gifts inter vivos (awqāf and hiba) in late-Ottoman Beirut, with a focus on legal practices, and the role of gender in informing people’s choices; the paper’s main argument is that these gifts should be read in conjunction with the findings on gifts and estate divisions post mortem for a broader understanding of the relationship between property devolution and gender. The use of family waqf as a patriarchal tool especially among upper class women in nineteenth century Damascus is another topic which will be discussed in this panel. The participation of non-Muslim women in the establishment of waqfs in Jerusalem in the second half of the nineteenth century, especially by Jewish women is also studied. The presentations will conclude with an analysis of waqf endowments through the registers of the shari‘a courts in Algeria’s Medea and Miliana which inform our understanding of family structures and the organization of family kinships and alliances.
This panel’s presentations are based on research conducted in different geographic regions that were part of the Ottoman Empire and use various types of archival resources. However, the leading sources for researchers on this panel are the registers of sharī‘a courts, which played a pivotal role in the establishment, management, and administration of waqfs. These registers pull from the shari‘a courts of Ottoman Tripoli, The Crimean Peninsula, Beirut, Dimashq al-Shām, Jerusalem and Algeria. Other sources include decrees, correspondences, waqfiyāt (endowment deeds), and tarika records (estate inventories).
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The proliferation of dhurri or ahli waqfs in eighteenth-century Bilad al-Sham is well established in the literature. In this paper, I approach waqf as an institution that increasingly reflects the peculiarity of the gender dynamics in Tripoli, in modern day Lebanon. Close analysis of the collection of waqfiyyāt (waqf deeds), in abundance in the registers of the sharia court, confirms that waqf served women’s worldly goals. In theory, a wāqifa (female endower) hoped to profit from her waqf in the spiritual sense but, in practice, waqf also served a material purpose. Despite the theoretically static status of waqfs, a wāqifa remained largely in control of her property during her lifetime; she could designate herself, or anyone else, as sole beneficiary or trustee. Though this was true for males, its social and financial significance for women were more pronounced. Preliminary findings indicate that Tripolitan women used waqf to protect their interests and provide for themselves an income that could sustain them during their duniya (lifetime). Women also used waqf to circumvent the rules on inheritance and give males and females equal shares and bequeath properties to support individuals in their familial and social circles who would typically be excluded.
This paper also delves into how mutual interests brought together women and the body of ‘ulamā’, whose influence on the social fabric of Tripoli is evident through the registers. I explore how the appointment of many ‘ulamā’ to wazā’if or occupations within waqfs establishments, financially supported by Tripolitan women, shaped gender norms and bolstered Tripolitan females position vis-a-vis the court. I analyze the significance of the transfer of occupations within the waqf system from females’ natal families to their male progenies and how it might have impacted these women’s marital relationships.
Nonetheless, there is every reason to believe that piety was also on the mind of these Tripolitan women when they created these religious endowments to fulfill their dīn (religious) duties, seeking rewards in the hereafter. Therefore, I expand the inquiry to examine the spiritual aspects of Tripolitan females’ pre-mortem planning which is revealed through both waqfiyyāt and tarika or estate inventories. I historicize what tarika documents tell us about women’s quest to ensure salvation in the hereafter, from instructions they left behind concerning their burials, to requests for different type of prayers, and other rituals to be performed at the time of their death and thereafter.
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My paper looks at gifts inter vivos (awqaf and hiba) in late-Ottoman Beirut, with a focus on legal practice, and the role of gender in informing people’s choices. Using the concept of the Islamic inheritance system, I argue that practices related to gifts inter vivos need to be analyzed in conjunction with other property devolution practices for a better understanding of the relationship between property devolution and gender. For example, Christians in late-Ottoman Beirut are found to be more likely to favor male descendants than their Muslim counterparts in family awqaf. However, the analysis of charitable awqaf, wills, inheritance cases, fictitious sales, and the exchange of quota-shares show that although many Christian property owners privileged male family members in family waqf, they made charitable provisions for poorer women from their religious community or family. In addition, since males were in charge of maintenance, wealthy Christians ensured in their wills that female family members who had lost their father or husband were taken care of. Furthermore, when it comes to inheritance, both Christian and Muslim female heirs most often received their due shares. Hence, the diversity of practices relative to waqf and hiba serves to highlight the complexities and flexibility of the Islamic inheritance system, and the need to go beyond a focus on fara’id law to understand how these practices articulate with a specific historical context. My paper emphasizes that findings on gendered practices when it comes to gifts inter vivos should be read in conjunction with the findings on gifts post morten, and post mortem estate divisions among heirs, for a broader understanding of the relationship between property devolution and gender.
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Before the eighteenth century, Crimea was part of the Ottoman world and had a well-established Islamic legal tradition. However, after the Russo-Ottoman wars of the eighteenth century, when the peninsula came under Russian control, Russian imperial authorities transformed Crimean Islamic legal institutions but did not completely erase its traditional judicial practices. Among these was waqf. Although the waqf institution continued to exist under Russian rule, it was always challenging for Russian authorities to define it legally. Thus, the central research questions include: What legal framework did Russian authorities apply to waqf properties? Were there discrepancies between Russian treatment of waqf and Islamic principles in post-annexation Crimea? The primary sources for this exploration include Crimean Shari’a court records (1782-1787), analyzed in conjunction with Russian archival documents from the same period. The court cases discussed in the presentation shed light on the conflicts and disputes surrounding waqf lands, offering insights into the evolving administrative treatment of these types of properties. The presentation argues that a shift in Russian authorities' classification of waqf lands, especially evident around the 1840s, reflected a broader struggle to measure, survey, and map Crimean land alongside the challenge of integrating Islamic legal principles within the Russian imperial administration.
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Archival documents from the maḥkama tribunal courts in the Ottoman Empire testify, in detail, that women exercised agency and impacted their immediate and larger environment via the creation of their waqf endowments. This was especially realized by their choice of beneficiaries for their waqfs which presumably revealed priorities by the endower.
However, when reading a waqfiyya endowment charter, the agency seemingly exerted via their choice of beneficiaries is not always readily visible in that women endowers’ selection of beneficiaries may not, in reality, reveal their own personal volition. When contextualizing and situating this choice within the family, one sees that it may serve as a tool to ensure that the continuity of property revenues, formerly received by individuals as private property dividends, were now simply transformed as revenues allocated to them in the form of waqf revenues (K. Uygur, C. Yalkin, S. Uygur, Market Making Strategies, 2023).
This is particularly the case with an endower who creates a family dhurrî/ahlî or shared mushtarak waqf as a means for safeguarding wealth within the paternal side of the family. In this situation, the waqf is used as a patriarchal tool by naming specific male individuals from the paternal side as beneficiaries. The example studied here relates to the waqf created in Damascus in 1880 by an upperclass Muslim woman, Ḥafizah khânum al-Mûrahlî, who allocates revenues from properties which she ceded to her mushtarak waqf to her husband’s two nephews as inheritable wealth, passing to their progeny after their demise.
Through the study of primary material from three documents related to this endowment, her waqfiyya from 1880 found in the Damascus Ministry of Awqâf archives, an abstract of this waqf’s activities written some 50 years later in the 1930s during the French Mandate kept in the Damascus Palace of Justice library and the 1951 abolition document of this waqf preserved with the Mûrahlî family, this contribution studies the details of the circumstances by which the endower Ḥafiza designated her husband’s two nephews as the sole individual inheritors of the wealth generated by her endowment. Her choice of religious establishments in Damascus (several neighborhood masjids and a madrasa) will also be examined within a situated context with the attempt to determine her relationship to these places.
