Strategy for Religious Endowment: A Comparative Study of the Waqf

Abstract This paper shows the spread of waqf endowments in the medieval Islamic world, especially in Egypt, Syria and Ottoman Turkey, based on narrative and archival sources, and discusses what purposes and motives for endowments and their social effects were. Finally, it goes on to state the features of the waqf endowment (combination of personal and religious motives, and of egoistic and altruistic wishes), in comparison with endowments in other regions such as Europe, India, China and Japan.