Monday 27 July 2015

Appendix A with Correction

Missing word has been included and underlined


جامع درويش باشا في دمشق


Appendix A:

Al-Waqf: One of the Glorious Deeds and Praiseworthy Exploits of the Muslims[1]

            Waqf is a means of drawing nearer to Allah. It is an act of worship. Waqf shows the veracity of the endower’s faith, his desire for goodness, his avidity for the interests of the Muslims, his love for them and their subsequent generations, and for their successive benefits. Since the time of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, the Muslims have provided the most sublime examples in the fields of waqf. They have made endowments that cannot be counted and dedicated properties that cannot be calculated. Their endowments cover so many aspects of goodness and spheres of kindness, as well as facilities of life: schools, masjids, hospitals, plots of land, buildings, wells, libraries, weapons, and these are for the benefit of children, the poor, soldiers, scholars and many others.

              They haven’t left any sphere of life except that they have made an endowment for it. There is no need in society except that they have dedicated some property for it. A quick glance at the lands of the Islamic world will inform you of the endowments that they made and the properties that they retained for the sake of Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He. Their rulers and their ruled took part in this, their commanders and their soldiers, their merchants and their craftsman, their men and their women, such that endowments grew in every Muslim country the proceeds of which are estimated to be hundreds of millions. In every land, these endowments have come to have a ministry that administers these properties and takes cares of them. There are thousands of families that live from the fruits of these endowments and their proceeds and there are also several facilities and numerous benefits that have continued and have grown out of these endowments and their goodness. May Allah reward those righteous people with goodness and grant them the most abundant reward and return. What is saddening and regrettable is that the desire for waqf in our day, since not that long ago, has decreased within many Muslims. The souls of many of them have become stingy with regards to the like of these ongoing charitable deeds and acts of kindness.

            This is a saddening phenomenon. If anything, it shows a lack of desire for return and reward, a weakness of faith in the Hereafter and its blessings, an intense love for this world and its passions and people’s preoccupation with this fleeting life and that they prefer it over the Hereafter and its blessings, such that Allah the Exalted’s statement accurately describes us: {Yet still you prefer the life of this world} [Sūrat al-ʿAlā 87:16] and it’s as if we haven’t heard the Exalted’s statement: {when the Hereafter is better and longer lasting.} [Sūrat al-ʿAlā 87:17], and there is no power or strength except in Allah, the Most High, the Sublime.

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[1] (tn): Translated from al-Fiqh al-Manhajī, v.2, p.241-242

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