The Book of Endowments

An endowment is the retention of the corpus and the dedication of its benefit. It may be established by a verbal declaration or by an action indicating it.

His statement, “endowment”: this is the verbal noun of waqafa yaqifu waqfan. It is also said, waqafa—that is, he stopped walking—whose verbal noun is wuquf, just as qaʿada has the verbal noun quʿud. Ibn Malik said:

The intransitive form faʿala, such as qaʿada,
Regularly takes fuʿul as its verbal noun, as does ghada.

Thus, the verbal noun of the intransitive waqafa is wuquf, whereas the verbal noun of the transitive waqafa, meaning to cause something to be stopped, is waqf, just as manaʿa yamnaʿu has the verbal noun manʿ.

Linguistically, it means retention. The author—may Allah have mercy on him—defined it in its technical sense as “the retention of the corpus and the dedication of its benefit.”

His statement, “the retention of the corpus,” means preventing it from being disposed of. “The corpus” means the property itself, such as a house, trees, land, a car, and the like, since an endowment may consist of movable property or real estate.

His statement, “and the dedication of its benefit,” means making it available. We know that dedication here means making available because he described the first part as “retention”; its opposite, therefore, is making available.

Thus, the meaning is that the endower retains the corpus from every transaction that transfers ownership of it, while making its benefit available—meaning its yield—such as the rent of a house, its produce, crops, and the like.

The basis for this is that the Commander of the Faithful, Umar ibn al-Khattab—may Allah be pleased with him—acquired some land in Khaybar which was precious to him, so he came