Fondations pieuses en mouvement: De la transformation du statut de propriete des biens waqf-s a Jerusalem, 1858-1917.

• Author: Meier, Astrid
• Position: Book review

Fondations pieuses en mouvement: De la transformation du statut de propriete des biens waqf-s a Jerusalem, 1858-1917. By MUSA SROOR. Damascus: INSTITUT FRANCAIS DU PROCHE ORIENT, 2010. Pp. 461, maps. [euro]30.

In recent decades the study of endowments or pious foundations--including the Islamic waqf--has moved from general histories of the legal institution from a normative perspective to more focused case studies in defined spatial and temporal settings. Historians have approached Islamic endowments from a variety of perspectives because they are a means by which some central features of many Muslim societies can be investigated. To this growing and lively field of discussion we can now add Musa Sroor's recent study of Jerusalem in the late Ottoman empire. At present a lecturer in the department of history and archaeology at Bir Zeit University in the Palestinian territories, Sroor presented an earlier version of this text as his doctoral thesis at the University of Provence, Aix-Marseille, in 2005.

Both the geographical setting and the time period of this study make it of special interest to waqf historians. As well as being the third most important sanctuary of the Muslim world, Jerusalem is also a nodal point for the aspirations of various Jewish and Christian communities, both within and beyond the Middle East; the city and its holy places were therefore of profound interest to the imperial powers of the time--particularly France, Russia, Great Britain, and Prussia, later Germany. The second half of the nineteenth century up to 1917 saw the global expansion of European imperialism, as well as the last decades of Ottoman rule. These brought not only momentous change to the juridical and administrative organization of the Ottoman empire, but also new ways of looking at "private" and "public" charity, property in general, education, religion, and the role of the state in these spheres. Add to that the fact that a wealth of archival and other sources of various types and provenance are available for a study of Jerusalem in this period, and you have the potential for a rewarding project.

Within this framework Sroor proposes to look at one of the fundamental problems related to Islamic endowments identified in juridical thought, namely, the precarious status of endowed property, which is intended in principle to remain waqf in perpetuity, i.e., until the end of time. This principle applies in particular in the Hanafi school of law, which is of primary concern in this study. All of the Sunni legal schools developed instruments that dealt with the actual limited lifespan of endowed property by allowing it to be exchanged with other assets or put to new uses. Sroor approaches this vast field of rules, procedures, and practices in the context of late Ottoman reform politics by focusing on what he calls the legal and illegal appropriation of endowed property (biens waqf) in the inner city of Jerusalem by outsiders, i.e., people and institutions--be they the state and its agencies, Muslim or...