Ottoman Cash Endowments

Ottoman Cash Endowments

By organizing as well as financing expenditures on education, health, welfare and a host of other activities, cash endowments (waqfs) played a vitally important role in the Ottoman social fabric and did so without any cost to the State. This article analyses the way these endowments functioned and contributed to the society over a long period of time covering almost three hundred years.

The cash waqf was a Trust Fund established with money to promote services to mankind in the name of Allah. The Ottoman courts approved these endowments as early as the beginning of the 15th century and by the end of the 16th century they had reportedly become extremely popular all over Anatolia and the European provinces of the Empire.

The exact extent of the geographical diffusion of these waqfs and, specifically, in the Arab provinces is subject to debate. Originally, it was argued that the more pious Arab regions refused to have anything to do with this institution. This view has been challenged. The widespread use of these waqfs in Aleppo has been documented and it is possible that new research may reveal further examples in other Arab cities.

The endowed capital of the waqf was "transferred" to borrowers who after a certain period, usually a year, returned to the waqf the principal plus a certain "extra" amount, which was then spent for all sorts of pious and social purposes. These vague terms "transferred" and "extra" have been used here deliberately.

In a social order where health, education and welfare were entirely financed by gifts and endowments, the cash waqfs carried serious implications for the very survival of the Ottoman social fabric. Moreover, they also provided major injections of capital to the economy of the city where they existed.

The Ottomans, being devoted Hanefis, conducted their business and social affairs within the general guidelines established by this school of thought. It is, therefore, imperative that this analysis should start with a summary of the classical Hanefi position pertaining to cash waqfs. A further debate in the establishment of Ottoman cash waqfs revolved around the question of their irrevocability. According to Ebu Hanife, the founder of a waqf or his descendants could revoke the original decision and claim the endowed property back.

The Ottomans resolved this legal debate among the great Hanefi scholars as follows: a man wishing to establish a waqf informed the court of his intention thereby creating the waqf. He later revoked his decision and demanded the trustee of the waqf return his capital. When the court refused his request, the waqf was considered established irrevocably.

The establishment of cash waqfs by the Ottomans during the 15th century appears to have taken place without legal complications. But during the next century when these waqfs became so popular that they dominated the awqaf system, the military judge of the European provinces, Civizade, challenged the situation. The Seyhulislam Abussuud Efendi almost immediately countered his view and a fierce debate began. Since the details of this debate have already been published, they will not be summarized here. It suffices to say that the debate between these two great jurists and their followers lasted for more than a century and even then remained inconclusive. Notwithstanding the debate and permitted by a decree dated 1548, cash waqfs continued to exist and flourish (Azcan, 2003: 45-47)

The aim of this article is to discover how these endowments functioned and contributed to the society over the long term. For this purpose the Cash Waqf Census Registers of the city of Bursa covering the period 1555-1823 were analysed. Thus, although limited to one Ottoman city, a long-term analysis covering almost three hundred years has been attempted for the first time.

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