“this is a sunnah,” it is void.

If he says, “I have endowed it for my children,” or, “for Zayd and then his progeny,” and adds nothing further, the preponderant view is that the waqf is valid. When the beneficiaries named become extinct, the stronger opinion is that the property remains a waqf and its income is distributed to the relatives closest to the settlor on the day that line dies out.

Should the waqf be “interrupted at the outset,” such as, “I endow it on whomever shall be born to me,” the school’s ruling is that it is void; but if the interruption occurs in the middle—“I endow it on my children, then on a certain man, then on the poor”—the authoritative view is that it is sound.

If he contents himself with the bare words “I have endowed,” the predominant opinion is that it is invalid. Nor may the waqf be suspended on a future contingency, as in, “If Zayd arrives, I have endowed it.” If he establishes the waqf while reserving an option of revocation, it is void according to the correct view. The sounder opinion, however, is that if he stipulates that the property is not to be leased, the stipulation must be respected; likewise, if in endowing a mosque he restricts it to a particular group—such as the Shāfiʿīs—the restriction stands, just as it would for a madrasa or a ribāṭ. If he endows it on two individuals and then on the poor, and one of the two dies, the sound, transmitted ruling is that the deceased’s share goes to the survivor.

Section

His statement, “I have endowed it on my children and my children’s children,” entails equal treatment of them all, and the same applies if he adds, “and whatever progeny they may have,” or, “generation after generation.” If he says, “on my children, then my children’s children, then their children as they beget,” or, “on my children and my children’s children, the higher the higher,” or, “the earlier the earlier,” this indicates an order of succession.

According to the sounder opinion, grandchildren are not included in a waqf made “for my children.” The daughters’ children, however, are included in a waqf “for my progeny, offspring, descendants, or children’s children,” unless he adds, “those of them who trace their lineage back to me.”

If he endows it on his mawālī while he has both a patron who freed him and a slave he himself has freed, the property is divided between the two; others hold that the waqf is void.

A qualifying description that precedes a series of conjoined nouns applies to all of them, as in, “I have endowed it on the needy among my children, grandchildren, and siblings.” The same rule applies to a description that follows them, and to an exception joined by a conjunction, as in, “on my children, grandchildren, and siblings who are in need,” or, “except any of them who becomes impious.”