an endowment is valid—since this is something that needs no special clarification—but rather because of what follows from it. Thus, an endowment may be leased but may not be sold, because a lease relates to the usufruct, and the usufruct belongs to the beneficiary of the endowment; it does not relate to the asset itself, which may not be sold.

The apparent meaning of the author’s words is that there is no difference between an endowment made for specified individuals, such as one’s children, and one made for unspecified beneficiaries, such as the poor; nor between an endowment for an entity that may own property, as in the examples we have given, and one for an entity that cannot own property, such as when one dedicates this house to the interests of mosques, for mosques cannot own property. In every case, leasing an endowment is valid.

His statement: “If the lessor dies and it passes to the one after him, the lease is not dissolved.” That is, he leased the endowment by virtue of being entitled to it, and then he died, so the endowment passed to those after him.

For example, someone says, “This is an endowment for my children, then for their children.” The children lease it and then die, whereupon the endowment passes to their children. The fathers leased the endowment for ten years, but Allah, Exalted is He, decreed that they should die after eight years, leaving two years of the term remaining. Is the lease then dissolved? The author says: No, it is not dissolved, because the fathers leased it at a time when they owned the usufruct, so the contract took effect. When it passes to those after them, it passes to them already under lease. What remains for us to consider is the rent: does all of it belong to the first beneficiaries, or all of it to the children to whom the endowment passed, or does each receive a proportionate share?