Preface
In the Name of Allah, The Most Gracious, Most Merciful Praise be to Allah who created the heavens and earth; praise be to Allah to whom gratitude for even one of His favours cannot be paid; I ask help of Him; I ask Him for His guidance; I ask Him for His forgiveness; I bear witness that there is no God except Allah, Who has no associate whatever, and that Muhammad is His servant and Apostle. May Allah bless and give peace to our Prophet. May Allah's blessings be upon him and his family as His blessings were upon Abraham and his family. Thou art praiseworthy and glorious!
This book consists of papers presented at a three-day Seminar held in May, 1999 on "Awqaf Experiences in South Asia", jointly organised by the Institute of Objective Studies, New Delhi, the Islamic Development Bank, Jeddah, the Kuwait Awqaf Public Foundation, Kuwait and Ta'awun Trust, New Delhi. The book also includes a few papers which were not presented at the Seminar but their inclusion appeared necessary to fill certain gaps which would have affected the usefulness of this book. It was for the first time ever that a Seminar of this nature was held in this region that consists of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Maldives and Nepal. Way back in 1960, the Wakf Section, Government of India, organised an All-India conference on waqf administration in India. One of the resolutions it passed emphasised the need of organizing an international conference on awqaf by the Government of India to discuss various issues and problems confronting awqaf. However this useful resolution never materialized. The organisers of the present Seminar deserve to be praised and congratulated for fulfilling a need that was outstanding for long. It is now hoped that the Government of India or some private institution or organisation may come forward to organise an international conference on waqf administration on even a more bigger scale.
It appears in order to briefly introduce the four joint organizers of the present Seminar. Two of them are Indian institutions, one is Kuwaiti and the fourth one is the Islamic Development Bank based in Saudi Arabia.
The Institute of Objective Studies, New Delhi, established in 1986, undertakes critical analysis and objective study of those modern ideologies, issues and problems which have a bearing on Indian Muslims, and the society they live in. During 1985-2000, the Institute organised more than hundred seminars/conferences both national and international. The Institute has a total of six chapters, one each in Kolkata (Calcutta), Chennai (Madras), Calicut, Aligarh, Ahmedabad and Patna.
The Ta'awun Trust, New Delhi, the other co-organiser, was established in 1989 as a public trust, to undertake educational and charitable activities, mainly focused on Indian Muslims.
The Islamic Development Bank and its Research and Training Institute are actively involved in devising measures for the betterment of awqaf. The Institute has organised a large number of seminars on the administration of awqaf in the various parts of the world.
Kuwait Awqaf Public Foundation is an arm of the Ministry of Awqaf, Government of Kuwait, which is actively engaged in reviving the socio-economic and developmental role of awqaf and in solving the problems besetting them. In this task it co-operates with the Islamic Development Bank.
South Asia has more than 300 million Muslims. They have created in the past a very large number of awqaf in this region. In India alone, for instance, there are 297,000 known awqaf which have survived the vagaries of changing governments and times. Many more awqaf may come to light once the survey now being undertaken is completed. In other countries of the region, it is unfortunate that the survey of waqf has yet to be taken up.
Delhi Sultans and the Mughals once ruled an area which now covers many countries of South Asia like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
In keeping with the well established Islamic tradition, they entrusted supervision of awqaf to qadis. However, after the Muslim rule came to an end, the British Government abolished the institution of qadi which deprived awqaf of all the supervisory control. Moreover, the religious nature of the institution of waqf, made the British to believe that their political survival depended on a policy of total non-interference in waqf matters. Mutawallis (managers) of waqf had a field day in the absence of any supervisory control and malversation of waqf became rampant. The abuse increased to an extent that Muslims themselves demanded imposition of some kind of official supervisory control over awqaf. It was with much reluctance, and only after they carefully weighed the political implications, that the British intervened in waqf affairs. They however went to the other extreme and took over all the waqf properties and their income and appropriated these as they wished. However soon they realised the mistake and stopped administering awqaf directly. Some of the waqf laws they enacted during the first half of the last century in Bengal, U.P., Bihar and Delhi provided a model for later waqf legislation in the country. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Sri Lanka, which were once under the British rule, naturally have a common history of waqf legislation. These legislation of the British era constitute the foundation of the modern waqf legislation in the region.
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