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4. Capital Investments in Businesses in the Ottoman Empire: Cash Awqaf

4. Capital Investments in Businesses in the Ottoman Empire- Cash Awqaf



بسم اللَّه الرحمن الرحيم وصلى الله على سيدنا محمد وعلى ءاله وصحبه أجمعين وسلّم




Title: Capital Investments in Businesses in the Ottoman Empire: Cash Awqaf

Author: Dr. Riyad Asvat

Publication date: 18/10/2014

Assalamu alaykum. Welcome to the Civilisation and Society Programme of the MFAS. This is the second of 12 sessions which make up the Question concerning Economics module. The lecture will last approximately 40 minutes during which time you should make a written note of any questions that may occur to you for clarification after the lecture. 


Capital Investments in Businesses in the Ottoman Empire: Cash Awqaf

“A Taken Zakat is based on necessary primary givens. 1) An appointed Amir. 2) That Amir’s appointment of Zakat Collectors. 3) This resulting in a collected and assessed amount of Zakat. 4) The gathering of the Zakat in a Bayt al-Maal. 5) The immediate distribution of the Zakat to the legally worthy recipients.

This has not happened.

Thus a newer and wider method must be adopted on a global scale PRIOR to the return of a local Halal functioning community which restores Islam by the door of Zakat.

Men must begin to trade and exchange, hand to hand, and transfer across distance without recourse to the financial instruments and institutions of capitalism.

Therefore, to that constructive future activity I call Muslims to begin a post-usury culture.”

Shaykh Abdalqadir as-Sufi, The Islamic Dinar - A Way-Stage Passed, Posted 11, February, 20141

Introduction

The process of trade begins with capital investment irrespective of the size of the enterprise. Whether buying and selling or manufacturing and selling initial capital is required. In the Ottoman Empire there was recourse to capital from various sources viz. investments in partnerships, loans, cash awqaf and money-lenders (sarrafs). This paper will focus on cash awqaf and the efforts made by the fuqaha in trying to eliminate riba (usury) from all transactions relating to the cash awqaf. 

The Ottoman Empire (The Osmanli Dawla)

The Ottoman Empire was Islamic. As Bernard Lewis says: “its people thought of themselves first and foremost as Muslims. Both Ottoman and Turk are, as we have seen, terms of comparatively recent usage, and the Ottoman Turks had identified themselves with Islam – submerged their identity in Islam – to a greater extent than perhaps any other Islamic people”.2 In practical terms this meant that under the authority of the Ottoman caliph economic activities were determined by the values of Islam, whose primary concern was the well-being of the Muslim community as a whole. Land was allocated by the Sultan on the basis of miri and timar.  The taxes of zakat, ‘ushr and jizya were collected and distributed.  Ottoman society during the Orhan Gazi era was at such a level of affluence that there was virtually no one to accept the zakat.3 The markets were regulated by the muhtasib who was appointed by the Sultan or local qadi. The maximal price system (narh) for necessities and the constant inspection of weights and measures in the bazaar, were duties that were taken most seriously by the Sultans. Sadaqa was regarded as highly meritorious behaviour and institutions derived from it played a vital role in the social welfare system of the society. A significant part of the fortunes accumulated by people, although sometimes temporarily employed in qirad/mudaraba enterprises, were used to establish awqaf. The economic significance of awqaf cannot be underestimated because the waqf was a primordial institution for the redistribution of wealth. Manufacturing flourished through the craft guilds.

The Ottoman monetary regime, for the most part, could be called bimetallic since both silver and gold were minted and circulated freely. The monetary system functioned reasonably well until the last quarter of the sixteenth century. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the large and far-flung caliphate was at the crossroads of intercontinental trade and Ottoman institutions of credit and finance retained their Islamic character and remained mostly uninfluenced by the developments that were taking place in Europe.

Within this Islamic milieu numerous commercial techniques were used in business. Some of these techniques included business partnership contracts such as qirad/mudaraba, sharika/musharaka, murabaha, and letters of credit. All of these commercial transactions were sanctioned by Islamic law and being socially more congenial, were preferred over loans that were based on riba. Ottoman entrepreneurs made use of these techniques and the Ottoman government relied on tax farming for both tax collection and short term borrowing purposes.

Awqaf

A waqf, the singular of awqaf, is a charitable endowment, that is, “a property, an amount of wealth etc. dedicated to the benefit of the created to please the Creator. The dedicated assets are put in possession, ownership of Allah eternally, i.e. the establisher of a waqf no longer has any right of ownership regarding the said wealth or property. The motive for establishing a waqf is solely to obtain the pleasure and consent of the Creator, hoping only for His reward.”4  The waqif (establisher of a waqf) must be an adult, sane and free. He or she must be under no compulsion to dedicate his or her possession and the motive must be to please Allah. The following conditions apply to the dedicated wealth: it must belong to the waqif; it must not be obtained by loan; it must be able to generate revenue, such as a shop, house, orchard, agricultural land etc.; must not be under a demolition order; and the beneficiaries must be clearly specified. The deed of trust (waqfiyya) is ratified by the qadi who records it in the register (sijil).5  The waqfiyya states: what wealth or property is dedicated; who will administer it; how the revenue will be spent; who the beneficiaries are; the number of employees; and salaries of the administrator and employees. 

Ibn Juzayy argued that the legal basis for the waqf was laid down by the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace.6 According to Hodgson Islamic society was financed through the waqf system.7 Hoexter explains that: “prior to the twentieth century a broad spectrum of what we now designate as public or municipal services e.g., welfare, education, religious services, construction and maintenance of the water system, hospitals, etc. were set up, financed and maintained almost exclusively by endowments ….”8  Timur Kuran notes that: “waqfs supported so many economic sectors that the evolution of Islamic civilization is incomprehensible without taking account of them.”9 The following passage from TimurKuran illustrates the extensive nature of the system: “At the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, threequarters of the country’s arable land belonged to the waqfs. Around the same time, one-eight of all cultivated soil in Egypt and one-seventh of that in Iran stood immobilized as waqf property. In the middle of the 19th century, onehalf of the agricultural land in Algeria, and in 1883 one-third of that in Tunisia, was owned by waqfs. In 1829, soon after Greece broke away from the Ottoman Empire, its new government expropriated land that composed about a third of the country’s total area. Figures that stretch back the farthest pertain to the total income of the waqf system. At the end of the 18th century, it has been estimated, the combined income of the roughly 20,000 Ottoman waqfs in operation equaled one-third of the Ottoman state’s total revenue, including the yield from tax farms in the Balkans, Turkey, and the Arab world.”10

In Maksudoglu’s list11 the wide variety of awqaf included those dedicated for: mosques; musallas (places set aside outside the towns for Eid and Friday prayers); madrassas (schools); libraries; zawiyas (gathering places for Sufis); tombs; fountains; cisterns; ponds; wells; lakes; roads; caravanserais; hospitals; cemeteries; meadows for weak cattle and sheep to graze; the upkeep of the holy cities of Makka and Madina; the Masjid al-Aqsa in Jerusalem; pilgrims; teachers; recitation of Qur’an, hadith, Dalailul Khayrat12 and Mawlid13 in mosques; serving dates, olives and water in mosques at the time of breaking the fast of Ramadan; food hampers for the poor; soup kitchens; providing house utensils and bride’s trousseaus for poor girls; funerals; purchasing clothes for the poor at Eid; the replacement of broken crockery; wayfarers; setting slaves free; writing of Qur’an and other books, purchasing, repairing and binding them. Kuran lists other objectives for waqfs, such as: “delivering water to a locality, defending a town, paying a neighborhood’s taxes, supporting retired sailors, supplying fruits to the children of a community, organizing picnics for a designated guild, subsidizing the cultivation of rare roses, and operating commuter ships, among hundreds of other purposes of varying social significance. One even finds waqfs for the benefit of nonhumans, including donkeys and storks.”14 

The dedicated assets of waqfs varied in size from very small e.g. a house to very large such as those of Hafsa Sultan (the mother of Sultan Suleyman) and Haseki Hurrem (Sultan Suleyman’s wife). Hafsa Sultan funded her waqf by dedicating the following assets: Urla, a town near Izmir, the revenues of 16 villages, shops in the town of Sobije, the revenue of a public bath, a mill and a small forest near Manisa.15 Haseki Hurrem’s waqf was funded by 26 villages, several shops, a covered bazaar, 2 soap plants, 11 flourmills and 2 bathhouses.16 It was not only the elite members of society that established waqfs. Hoexter has noted that studies of waqfs established by women found that the endowers came from all walks of life, rich and poor, those of the ruler’s households as well as those of simple origin.17 Court records have revealed that: “the endower population included practically all strata – from the rich and powerful to people who owned very small bits of property, like a room or some part of a dwelling; men and women, Muslims as well as dhimmis [non-Muslims].”18

Awqaf al-Nuqud - Cash Waqfs

The cash waqf was a philanthropic trust fund established with money to promote services to society in the name of Allah. Cash awaqf were approved by Ottoman courts at the beginning of the fifteenth century and by the end of the sixteenth they had become plentiful all over Anatolia and the European provinces of the empire. They were responsible for making major injections of capital into the economies of the cities where they existed. Wealthy individuals, with capital that was privately owned, established the cash waqfs. The capital of these awqaf was invested with entrepreneurs who after a certain period returned to the waqf the principal plus an agreed percentage of the profit on that principal. The percentage of the profit was specified by the waqf. This return on the principal was then spent for specified religious and social purposes. 

The endowed capital was deposited with a trustee who would then register the waqf at the court. The details of the waqf were entered into the registers called the vakif tahrir defterleri or cash waqf censuses. These details included: name of the waqf; purpose of the waqf; name of the district where the waqf was being registered; name of the trustee; period of time covered by the census; value of the original capital of the waqf; subsequent additions to the capital of the waqf; balance of new capital thereby created; the return acquired from the investment of the capital; the designated purpose of the annual return; names of partners; amounts partners; addresses of partners; religion of partners and gender of partners.

The operation of the cash waqf began with the endowment of cash to a trustee. This was followed by the registration of the waqf in a court of law. The capital of these awqaf was distributed to partners who after a certain period returned to the waqf the principal plus an agreed upon percentage of the profit on that principal. The returns on the capital were then spent for specified religious and social purposes. 

A significant part of the fortunes accumulated by people, although sometimes temporarily employed in business enterprises, were used to establish cash awqaf. The economic significance of the cash awqaf cannot be underestimated because these awaqf were primordial institutions for the redistribution of wealth.  “In a society where health, education and welfare were entirely financed by gifts and endowments, the cash waqfs carried serious implications for the very survival of the Ottoman social fabric. Moreover they also provided major injections of capital to the economy of the cities where they functioned.”19 The cash waqfs played a major role in Ottoman society. The salaries of all clerks, auditors and accountants of the administration were paid by the cash waqfs. Education was essentially considered the responsibility of these awqaf. The founder of the waqf laid down the conditions for the appointment of the teachers and  professors. Their salaries were paid by the awqaf. Paying salaries lower than those specified was prohibited whilst increases were permitted. Increasing the salaries meant that the rank of the school was raised because the status of the schools depended on the salaries they paid to its teachers. Food was provided to the poor by many of the awqaf. Some specified the poor of a particular district and others specified feeding during certain religious festivals. There were others set up for feeding anyone who asked for food. Provision of food for members of guilds was widespread. When a wealthy guild member established a waqf he would in many cases stipulate that food be provided to the members of his guild.

Certain awqaf specified that regular salaries be paid to family members. The salaries of judges were paid by some awaqf. Some even paid for the expenditure of prisoners. Awqaf were set up to provide for the maintenance of mosques and schools. The salaries of imams and other personnel related to the mosques and their maintenance were paid by some awqaf. They also covered other expenses of the mosques. Salaries were paid to huffaz, khatibs and for the recitation of mawlid. Repairs to pavements and public baths were paid for by some of the awqaf. They also gave alms to the poor and assisted those poor who were attached to the Sufi zawwiyas. Many awqaf were established to help people pay their taxes. Finally the trustees were paid salaries by the awqaf.

As can be seen from the above the cash awqaf played a very important role in Ottoman society. Cash awqaf by organizing and financing expenditure on welfare, health and education, as well as other areas, provided services that are at present financed by the state or local authorities. It was therefore of great importance to guarantee that all transactions carried out by these awqaf were approved by Islamic law.

Cash Waqfs –Legal Status of the Returns

The dedicated assets were irrevocable and have to satisfy the conditions of perpetuity. Real estate was seen as the best asset with regards to perpetuity. The Hanafi scholars recognized three exceptions to this general principle. They were: firstly, movable assets belonging to an endowed real estate, such as oxen or sheep on a farm; secondly if there was a hadith which mentioned this exception and thirdly if, in a particular region, the endowment of moveable assets was the customary practice, ta‘amul. Both Muhammad al-Shaybani and Abu Yusuf, Abu Hanifa’s most famous students, had accepted the endowment of moveable assets. Zufar (d. 775), also a student and companion of Abu Hanifa, considered money to be a moveable asset and ruled that cash was permitted as the basis for the establishment of a waqf. Zufar suggested that the endowed cash form the capital base of qirad/mudaraba20 partnerships and any profits realized should be spent in accordance to the stated purpose of the waqf.21

As noted above the capital of the cash waqf was distributed to borrowers who after a certain period of time returned to the waqf the principal plus a return on that principal. Cash awqaf  have been accused of participating in usurious transactions by claiming that the return consisted of a fixed percentage of the principal and as such constituted riba in violation of Islamic law. Scholars such as Barkan, Ayverdi, Mandaville and Gerber claim that cash waqfs simply lent money on interest. For example Mandaville says: “Among the various institutions and practices singled out as distinctly Ottoman contributions to Islamic civilization, one has surprisingly little comment and analysis. … This is the legitimized practice of usurious piety, the waqf al-nuqud (pl. awqaf al-nuqud), the establishment of a trust with money the interest from which might pay the salary of a teacher, a preacher, or even unashamedly pass into the pocket of the founder of the trust”.22 Jennings arrived at similar conclusions after a study of the judicial record books (sing. sicil) of Ottoman qadis at courts at central and eastern Anatolia: “The sicils indicate that a large number of seventeenth century evkaf [awqaf] were engaged in money lending. In fact, many evkaf were endowed partly or entirely with capital rather than land or buildings and so maintained themselves entirely by money lending. Barkan and Ayverdi, in their important study of a 1564 tahrir defter of Istanbul evkaf, found that over 1150 such evkaf existed in Istanbul alone in the middle of the sixteenth century (46% of the total 2517 evkaf in the city); the normal rate of interest was 10% or 11.25%, although a few required 12.5%, a very few15%, and one possibly 20%.”23 

In the sixteenth century several Ottoman ulama condemned the cash waqfs branding them as usurious. Birgevi stated in one of his treatises that: “cash waqf is in little-esteemed books wherein joint partnership, commerce, and the like is mentioned. Now in our day they profit from usury in the very fashion that the Prophet of God censured.”24 Again in the same treatise he scathingly said that: “most of the waqf administrators are ignorant and don’t recognize pictures of usury in the Book; they make profit with loans and sale. Any loan from which profit is made is usurious. Some of them lead a dissolute life, taking interest without even going through the motions of using legally permissible devises to do so. They make waqf of usury and the forbidden, pure and simple, giving it to the administrators who consume the usury. They are in the same position as someone struck mad and frenzied by the devil.”25 

In contradiction to the views of Mandaville, Jennings and Birgevi, Donduren maintains that the returns that the cash waqfs received were not interest but a percentage of the profits.26 In order to understand why these differing views have been expressed a closer examination of the methods by which a cash waqf was able to invest its capital becomes necessary. We find that there were three methods: qirad/mudaraba;  bida’a; and mu‘amala shar‘iyya.



Qirad/Mudaraba 

The mudaraba contract is between two parties in which one party is called rabb al-mal i.e. the investor who entrusts money, in this case the cash waqf, to the second party called mudarib i.e. the entrepreneur or agent-manager. The mudarib invests his labor and time and manages the venture according to the terms of the contract. The net profits realized are divided between the two parties according to a prior agreed upon ratio. Any loss of capital is borne by the rabb al-mal. The loss of the mudarib constitutes his time, labor and expected profits. 

Bida’a

The bida’a is a contract in which the cash waqf entrusts its capital to the borrower who returns the proceeds of the transaction to the waqf without any compensation, commission or profit.

Mu‘amala shar‘iyya

The mu‘amala shar‘iyya is a general term covering various methods by which money could be lent to borrowers within the parameters of Islamic law. Of these the most popular one used by the cash waqfs is the hiyal (legal device) known as istiglal and has become the subject of another debate.

In modern times a debate has been going on around this issue of istiglal. Gerber’s position is as follows: “In 17th century Bursa istiglal designated an interest bearing loan, outwardly construed as a sale: the borrower handed over to the lender a piece of real estate, supposedly as a sale, but actually in pawn. If the borrower redeemed his debt after one year, the asset reverted to him. In the meantime, the lender leased the asset to the borrower (so that the borrower could go on using it) and the ‘rent’ which was often exactly 10% of the loan, was nothing but interest. In short, we have here a simple interest bearing loan with a piece of real estate as security”.27 It can thus be inferred that through istiglal and other similar legal techniques (hiyal) it was possible for the cash waqfs to lend money on interest and still remain within the law. Pamuk, Cizakca and others have referred to istiglal as a legal fiction. Cagatay stated that: “Since in books of fiqh and official records such derivation of interest is termed mu’amala-i shar‘iya the method followed is in fact deception and there can be no deception in shari‘a.”28 

On the other side of the debate Donduren maintains that the amount returned to the waqf was not interest but a percentage of the profits. He criticizes the interpretations of modern economic historians and jurists with regards to the terminology used in the contracts between the cash waqfs and their borrowers. For example Jennings says: “Several terms are used for interest. … All refer to an interest which may have been illegal under classical Islamic law but which was legitimate in 17th century Ottoman sharia courts of Anatolia.”29  Donduren says that all transactions between the cash waqfs and the borrowers were carefully scrutinized by the jurists and were legal.  He argues that historians have been confused by some of the terminology that was used in the cash waqf deeds. The term istirbah, for example, which some historians interpreted as taking riba or interest, firstly meant that the capital of the waqf was not given as a qard hasan, i.e. loan without interest, and secondly that a share of the profit to be earned by the investment of the endowed capital was to be paid by the borrower to the waqf. Similarly, the term ilzam-i ribh meant that the borrower was required to make a profit and then return to the waqf the principal and a percentage of the profit. The term, onur onbir uzere, which is translated as ‘eleven out of ten’ was the specified share of the profit required by the waqf. It meant that for every ten dirhams of profit earned by the entrepreneur, one dirham was to be returned to the waqf.

From the above discussion it can be seen that the mudaraba and bida’a methods were well known forms of Islamic finance and did not contain any element of riba. Istiglal, however, is an interest bearing loan, which by legal fiction, was insinuated into the Islamic framework. The increase on the capital that was returned to the cash waqf through the financial instrument of istiglal did constitute riba. Due to the fact that istiglal was a hiyal it was not regarded as riba. A hiyal being a legal device which “observes the letter but not the spirit of the law”. Cizakce says that: “As far as the legal establishment is concerned these instruments were permitted and not categorized as interest. Most Ottoman jurists had no doubts about the legality of these instruments.”30 This must be what the Ottoman scholar Birgevi was referring to when he noted that: “most of the waqf administrators are ignorant and don’t recognize pictures of usury in the Book”.31

The Reasons Why Cash Waqfs did not Turn into Banks

One of the areas investigated within waqf studies has been the economic history of the regions in which these institutions appeared. Timur Kuran notes that although the waqf is governed by Islamic law its activities are not confined to religious matters nor its benefits to Muslims. Public services which are now provided by government agencies were provided through the waqfs. It was not until the second half of the 19th century did the cities of the Middle East establish municipalities to deliver urban services in a centralized manner. Timur Kuran argues that “the waqf system served as a credible commitment device aimed at providing the owners of land and other immovable assets economic security in return for investments in public goods. The system thus provided social services by providing their suppliers with protection against revenue seeking rulers.”32  Timur Kuran’s criticism of the waqf system is that: “because the waqf system played an important role in the premodern economy of the Middle East, it may well have contributed to turning the region into an underdeveloped part of the world. Several claims are made here. Because Islamic law required the manager of a waqf, its mutawalli, to obey the founder’s stipulations to the letter, the system lacked the flexibility to keep up with rapidly changing economic conditions. Reasonably well suited to the slow changing medieval economy into which it was born, it thus proved unsuitable to the relatively dynamic economy of the industrial age. By the 19th century the system’s rigidities made it appear as a grossly inadequate instrument for the provision of public goods; and thus this perception allowed the modernizing states of the Middle East to nationalize vast properties belonging to waqfs.”33

Timur Kuran suggests that the development of the waqf system into municipalities with corporate powers would not only have solved the problem of efficiently delivering modern urban services but would also have provided the model for private commercial enterprises enabling them to increase their global competitiveness. This, as noted by him, did not happen because Islamic law precludes the emergence of corporations. However, Timur Kuran fails to recognize that Islamic law does not inhibit (a) cooperation between awqaf free of interference of the state or (b) the promotion of private property. It is corporate law itself that mitigates against private property leading to the accumulation of wealth for a small number of individuals. This accumulation of wealth by these individuals is made possible through the legal system in which corporations are regarded as legal entities (legal persons) which have legal personalities that are separate from their members. These fictional persons (corporations) can: sue and be sued; own assets; hire agents; sign contracts; make laws to govern their internal affairs; transfer shares; exist perpetually despite the death or withdrawal of shareholders; and possess limited liability.  Limited liability means that shareholders are insulated from judgments made against the corporations. Limited liability has long been criticized for violating the “first and most natural principle of commercial legislation … that every man was bound to pay the debts that he had contracted so long as he was able to do so.”34 Islamic law makes the individual face the consequences of his or her own actions. Islamic legal philosophy asserts that the “worshipping man and woman remain at the centre of Muslim society” and “all activity must remain within the scope of the balanced human being, must be humanly possible and comprehensible.”35 With the advantage of having limited liability it is no wonder that corporations have become the dominant institutions of our age to whom humanity including governments (at all levels, including municipal) have become indebted. 36  

Coming to Timur Kuran’s point of private commercial enterprises increasing their competitiveness, let us take for example of cash waqfs which by the 16th century “accounted for more than half of all new Ottoman waqfs.”37 One of the reasons that cash waqfs flourished was that there were no banks able to meet the demand for business loans. According to Timur Kuran, for cash waqfs to evolve into banks would require them to be incorporated i.e. for them to be legally regarded as corporations. This did not happen because of the anti-corporatism in Islamic law.38 The other reason that cash waqfs did not evolve into banks, not mentioned by Timur Kuran, was that they could not practice fractional reserve banking which is based on riba (usury).  The rise of modern banking in Europe had profound consequences for the Ottoman caliphate precisely because European banks have become the most powerful of all corporations thanks to their ability to control the money supply through fractional reserve banking. It was its indebtedness to European banks that led to the demise of the Ottoman caliphate.39 There was a clear linkage between Ottoman importations of Western technology to interest based financing.40 

Conclusions

In this study of the cash waqfs I found that wealthy individuals with capital, which was privately owned, established the cash waqfs. The capital of these awqaf was invested in business partnerships which after a certain period returned to the waqf the principal plus a prior agreed upon percentage of the profits. This return on the principal was then spent for specified religious and social purposes. Due to the fact that the Ottomans were devoted followers of the Hanafi school of law I considered the legal issues that pertain to the establishment of cash awqaf from the Hanafi perspective. The three major legal questions with regard to permissibility of the establishment of cash waqfs related to endowment of movable assets, perpetuity and irrevocability. I found that most Ottoman jurists, after examining these questions had no doubts about the legality of the cash waqfs. The capital of the cash waqfs was invested by three methods namely: qirad/mudaraba and other business contracts; bida’a; and mu‘amala shar‘iyya, in the category of istiglal. The first two methods were well known forms of Islamic finance and the returns from these investments were profits and did not contain any element of riba. Istiglal, however, is an interest bearing loan, which by legal fiction, was insinuated into the Islamic legal framework. The increase on the principal that was returned to the cash waqf using the financial instrument of istiglal was riba, which was made legally acceptable by the Ottoman jurists through the technique of hiyal. 

That brings us to the end of today’s lecture. Recommend further reading is to be found in the Bibliography. Thank you for your attention. Assalamu alaykum.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cagatay, N. “Riba and Interest Concept and Banking in the Ottoman Empire”. Studia Islamica, 32 (1970): 53-68.

Cizakca, M. A Comparative Evolution of Business Partnerships.  Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996.

------. “Cash Waqfs of Bursa 1555-1823.” Journal of Economic and Social History of the Orient, 38, 3: 313-354.

Farooqhi, S. Approaching Ottoman History. Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Fleet, K. European and Islamic Trade in the Early Ottoman State.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Gerber, H. Economy and Society in an Ottoman City: Bursa, 1600-1700. Jerusalem: The Hebrew University, 1988.

Incalik, H. and Quartet, D., (eds). An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Inalcik, H., “Turkey Between Europe and the Middle East,” Perceptions: Journal of International Affairs; available from http://www.mfa.gov.tr/grupa/percept/111-1/inalc.htm; accessed 5 August 2001.

Jennings, R.C. “Loans and Credit in Early 17th Century Ottoman Judicial Records.” In Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol. XVI, Parts II-III: 168-216.

Kasaba, R. The Ottoman Empire and the World Economy. Albany: SUNY Press, 1988.

Keddie, N.R. An Islamic Response to Imperialism. Berkely: University of California Press, 1983.

Mandaville, J.E. “Usurious Piety: The Cash Waqf Controversy in the Ottoman Empire.” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 10 (1979): 289-308.

Maksudoglu, M. Osmanli History. Kuala Lumpur: International Islamic University Malaysia Press, 1999

------. “Waqf  (Pious Foundation)” Talk delivered at 7th International Fiqh Conference, South Africa, October 2000. 

Pamuk, S. A Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

------. The Ottoman Empire and European Capitalism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.

Saeed, A. Islamic Banking and Interest: A Study of the Prohibition of Riba and its Contemporary Interpretation. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996.

Saleh, N.A. Unlawful Gain and Legitimate Profit in Islamic Law, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. 

Shaw S. and E. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Vol. 1 and 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.

As-Sufi, Shaykh Abdalqadir. The Return of the Khalifate. Cape Town: Madinah Press, 1996.

------. Technique of the Coup de Banque. Palma: Editorial Kutubia Mayurqa, 2000.

------. Letter to an Arab Muslim. Palma: Editorial Kutubia Mayurqa, 2000.

Udovitch, A.L. “At the Origins of the Western Commenda: Islam, Israel, Byzantium?”  Speculum 37 (1962): 198-207. 

Wallernstein, I., Decdeli, H. and Kasaba, R. “Incorporation of the Ottoman Empire and the World-Economy.” The Ottoman Empire and the World-Economy, Islamoglu-Inan, (ed). Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 1987.

Zilfi, M.C. “The Kadizadelis: Discordant Revivalism in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 45, no.4 (1986): 251-269.



1 http://www.shaykhabdalqadir.com/the-islamic-dinar-a-way-stage-passed/

2 Lewis, B., The Emergence of Modern Turkey, (London:  Oxford University Press, 1968), 2.

3  Maksudoglu, M., Osmanli History 1289-1922, (Kuala Lumpur: International Islamic University Malaysia, 1999), 20.

4 Maksudoglu, M., “Waqf”, Sultaniyya, Madinah Press, Cape Town, 2002, p. 52

5 Maksudoglu, M., “Waqf” p. 52

6 Ibn Juzayy al-Kalbi, “On the Waqf – and it is the Hubus”, al-Qawanin al-Fiqhiyyah, tr. A. Clarke, http://www.bogvaerker.dk/Awqaf.html 

7 Hodgson, M.G.S., The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1974, p. 124 

8 Hoexter, M., “Waqf Studies in the Twentieth Century: The State of the Art”, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol. 41, No. 4. (1998), p. 476

9 Kuran, T., “The Provision of Public Goods Under Islamic Law: Origins, Impact, and Limitations of the Waqf System”, Law and Society Review, Vol. 35, No. 4. (2001), p. 851  

10 Kuran, T., “The Provision of Public Goods Under Islamic Law: Origins, Impact, and Limitations of the Waqf System”, p. 849

11 Maksudoglu, M., “Waqf”, pp. 58-59

12 A popular collection of prayers on the Prophet.

13 Celebration of the birth of the Prophet.

14 Kuran, T., “The Provision of Public Goods Under Islamic Law: Origins, Impact, and Limitations of the Waqf System”, p. 850

15 Maksudoglu, M., “Waqf”, p. 73

16 Kuran, T., “The Provision of Public Goods Under Islamic Law: Origins, Impact, and Limitations of the Waqf System”, p. 849

17 Hoexter, M., “Waqf Studies in the Twentieth Century: The State of the Art”, pp. 481-482 

18 Hoexter, M., “Waqf Studies in the Twentieth Century: The State of the Art”, p. 478

19  Cizakca, M., A Comparative Evolution of Business Partnerships (Leiden: E.J. Brill,1996), 131. 

20 profit sharing business partnership

21 Cizakca, M., “Cash Waqfs of Bursa 1555-1823”, Journal of Economic and Social History of the Orient, 38, 3: 313

22 Mandaville, Usurious Piety, p. 289.

23 Jennings, Loans and Credit, 203.

24 Mandaville, Usurious Piety, 306.

25 Ibid., 306

26 Cizakca,Cash Waqfs of Bursa, 330.

27 Gerber, H., Economy and Society in an Ottoman City: Bursa, 1600-1700 (Jerusalem: The Hebrew University, 1988), 128.

28 Cagatay, Interest Concept, 58.

29 Jennings, Loans and Credit, 187.

30 Cizakca, Cash Waqfs of Bursa, 330-331. 

31 Mandaville, Usurious Piety, 306.

32 Kuran, T., “The Provision of Public Goods Under Islamic Law: Origins, Impact, and Limitations of the Waqf System”, p. 843

33 Kuran, T., “The Provision of Public Goods Under Islamic Law: Origins, Impact, and Limitations of the Waqf System”, p. 843

34 Bakan, J., The Corporations, Constable and Robinson Ltd., London, 2004, p. 13 

35 Yate, A., Ibn Rushd – Mujtahid of Europe, Turmverlag, 1999, pp. 11-12      

36 Bakan, J., The Corporations, p. 5  

37 Kuran, T., “The Provision of Public Goods Under Islamic Law: Origins, Impact, and Limitations of the Waqf System”, p. 873 

38 Kuran, T., “The Provision of Public Goods Under Islamic Law: Origins, Impact, and Limitations of the Waqf System”, p. 875   

39 Pamuk, S., The Ottoman Empire and European Capitalism, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1987, p. 56

40 As-Sufi, A., The Return of the Khalifate, Madinah Press, Cape Town, 1996, p. 34