Waqf: A blessing that has befallen Iranians for years

After years of effort, running around, and spending a lot of money to build a production-agricultural unit, when the bank inquires about the ownership certificate of his agricultural land from the Document Registration Organization, the registration office replies that a quarter of the property title has been invalidated by the Awqaf Organization and registered in its own name!

It was as if the sky was suddenly destroyed on his head. He was confused and desperate and did not know what to do. He was forced to return to the Endowment Organization to solve the problem, and there he opened his heart to the Director General of Endowments and said that we are a few families with a number of young people, our only hope and solution for making a living is this production plan, which we have been pursuing continuously for more than two years, and now, with the situation that has arisen, it is not possible to establish facilities on that land, nor to mortgage the land to the bank for a loan.

His argument with the Director General, who is a cleric, escalates, and in the end, instead of resolving the problem, the Director General of Endowments accuses him of atheism and labels him a counter-revolutionary. The matter does not end there. The Director General, in anger, orders his secretary to write a letter to the bank stating that not only part of the property but the entire land in question is an endowment!
He leaves the Endowment Organization with his hands full, thinking about the uncertain fate that awaits him, and, exhausted and dejected, he heads home.

These stories have been seen a lot in Iran over the years, and every day, a number of people in cities and villages are informed that their ownership documents have been invalidated and their properties have been declared endowments due to a complaint by the Endowment Organization, without them having the slightest knowledge of this issue until that moment?!

A brief look at endowments and endowments in the Islamic Republic

Whatever time and in whatever way it has been created, the endowment has become a curse for the people of Iran in recent years and seriously threatens their lives. In recent years, the Endowment Organization has been expanding its heavy shadow over people's lives day by day by revoking thousands of property deeds from different segments of the population across the country under the pretext of endowment and endowment.

This procedure entered the implementation phase in April 1984, after the first round of the Islamic Consultative Assembly approved the law on the cancellation of documents for the sale of property, water, and endowment lands, and it continues to accelerate.

What is a waqf and what is an awqaf?

An endowment is an agreement based on which individuals give away part or all of their property and assets for a humanitarian and charitable cause and express their intention to donate.

With such an act, the donated property becomes unsellable from then on. This is a brief definition of waqf, while the general reasons and whys regarding waqf and its changes and developments over time are a tangle of confusion that no one has ever attempted to unravel, and over the years, endowments have been managed according to different tastes and in different ways.

The Awqaf Organization, which has today become a large, multinational corporation, is an organization that has given all these donations and grants throughout history a religious and sacred status and considers itself the undisputed owner and possessor of these properties and properties.

Here, we are also forced to refer to this category and institution, which has a humanitarian origin and is inherently benevolent with a long history, as an endowment.

The endowment, which, according to its existential philosophy, is a benevolent thing and should be the foundation of charitable services to the deprived and needy in society and should be utilized in accordance with the intentions and wishes of the endowments, has not only not benefited any needy people in these years and with the coming to power of the Islamic Republic, but has also become a major problem and a complicated issue for the general public. On the other hand, it has become a suitable platform for large-scale abuses by some who know how to play with it, to the point that these days, endowment abuse has become a widely used phrase among the people.

Over the years, the Waqf has had an unpleasant and very harmful effect on the general public of Iran, as it has invalidated thousands of people's ownership documents, especially those of peasants' lands, houses, and urban and rural shops, and has caused trouble and perhaps misery for the owners of these properties, while its benefits have gone to the wealthy and powerful in society instead of the needy, and only a select few have been able to pocket huge profits through trickery and, as the moderns call it, by embezzling endowments.

Waqf, whose presence and existence are wrongly and unjustly attributed to Islamic philosophy and given to it the command of Sharia and God's law, and today, for this reason and thanks to the undisputed power of the Islamic Republic in Iran, has come to the lives of people and has become an economic giant with a very high power and organization, which has billions of billions of tomans in capital and thousands of real estate and countless lands, and has become one of the largest economic poles of the Islamic Republic system under the supervision of the Supreme Leader, every day it increases its possessions by invalidating numerous documents without giving the slightest right to the owners of the documents that are invalidated because they are so-called endowments. This is while Waqf has no connection with Islamic jurisprudence, nor has any example of it been seen in the history of early Islam, nor has any name or sign of it been mentioned in the Quran and Hadiths, which are the main sources of knowledge in Islam.

Clear evidence indicates that endowment has no precedent in Islamic philosophy and religious texts. Rather, it was later included in the religious issues under this title through a kind of historical distortion and theological and propaganda influence. Today, the Islamic Republic uses it as the best excuse for acquiring and seizing people's properties and lands, and with the slightest pretext, it invalidates the documents of others and confiscates them for its own benefit under the title of endowment.

It can be said that the issue of endowment was formalized and expanded before any other time during the Mongol Ilkhanate's domination of Iran. The invading Mongols, who had just converted to Islam, had learned to endow large lands and properties that they had seized by force of the sword and massacre of their owners, so that they would remain in their possession and those of their descendants for generations and that no one would dare to claim ownership or the right to sell them. However, there is no reliable document available as to when the organization called Endowment was established, because the subject matter of Endowment has never been examined and researched, and it is a matter of confusion that needs to be examined.

What is clear is that during the time of Nasser al-Din Shah, the endowments were under the supervision of an institution called the Ministry of Education, Endowments and Industries, which was later, in 1288 AH, under the supervision of the Ministry of Justice and Endowments Affairs, and is currently nominally under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, while in practice it is an independent, separate institution under the supervision and command of the Leader.

The evolution and changes of land ownership from a historical perspective

With a brief look at the evolution and change in land ownership in Iran over the past centuries, we will realize that it is not possible to fairly and in fact determine the true owner of any land, especially lands that are currently being reclaimed and seized by the endowment from their owners under the pretext of being endowments, so that a fatwa can be issued regarding the true right of ownership.

It is no secret that the history of land ownership over the past centuries has had sad and varied stories, and there is no doubt that ownership has always been determined by force in all forms throughout the past eras.

No one created the land to claim ownership of it, so throughout history we see that ownership of land has undergone various changes and evolutions. Once upon a time, land was administered in a way called serfdom. Then the era of feudalism began, and then feudalism and ownership of land has always changed and taken on a different form with the victory of some over others and the coming to power of a new class. One thing about ownership cannot be denied or forgotten, and that is the popular saying that "force nullifies the deed." History clearly tells us that vast lands have always been taken by those who prevailed from the conquered by force and have become their property, rather than by acquiring them through a fair and reasonable means. Can a property that was acquired by force of the sword and bloodshed, and by oppression and even the massacre of its owner or owners, be called someone's legitimate property?! Does such a person have the right and can he endow such a property? And did he consider his endowment legitimate?

In any case, what emerges from the evolution and change in land ownership, especially large land, and history is proof of this, is that all of these ownerships are subject to doubt and suspicion. If human rights are to be respected in them and we are to rely on justice and reason, we must judge these ownerships with a humane and fair perspective and accuracy, and observe and implement justice in their regard.

For example, when the invading Arabs or Mongols conquered the land of Iran by force and bloodshed, their chieftains seized vast areas of land. Later, these lands and properties that were seized by force, injustice, and inhumanity belonged to their descendants and survivors. This process continued for centuries until today, when the Endowment Organization expropriates properties for its own benefit. In fact, it forcibly takes them from the owners of these properties, who are mostly poor people who have purchased their property, without giving them any right to defend themselves, and registers and confiscates them for its own benefit.

Clear and undeniable evidence in the field of endowments and endowments in general indicates the fact that most endowments have taken possession of the properties they have endowed by force and unjustly, and according to Islamic jurisprudence, these properties are considered usurped. On the other hand, most of them have not done so out of compassion or service to the needy, but rather to possess these properties for life, with various intentions and deceptive appearances. Because endowments have been given a sacred and religious status by religious missionaries and clerics, and no one will dare to oppose the sacred and religious properties. In this way, over time, many owners have endowed their vast properties and lands, the ownership of which is subject to great doubt and suspicion, so that their children will continue to own them for generations after them, and they will be protected from any theft or harm under the shadow of religion and Islamic law.

One of the most extensive endowments is on Astan Quds Razavi, which was endowed by a person named Hajj Hossein Aghamalek through 8 endowment deeds, and this has resulted in more than 95% of the total Khorasan province being endowed today, and the guardianship of these endowments is today the responsibility of Astan Quds Razavi (Astan Quds Multinational Company, Qudsiran). It is necessary to explain that Astan Quds is independently managed under the supervision of the Leader and by the representative of the Supreme Leader.

Other great endowments include Rashid al-Din Watawat Hamedani, whose endowments are known as Rab' al-Rashidi in Tabriz. He endowed one-third of the entire Tabriz, which was part of his estate. Rashid al-Din Watawat Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Abdul Jalil, whose lineage reaches back to the second caliph, Umar ibn al-Khattab, through eleven intermediaries. It turns out that he and the other endowments who endowed vast estates were mostly descendants and survivors of Muslim invaders who occupied the lands of Iran by force and cruelty, and then, in order to preserve these estates forever, they outlined the issue of endowment as a religious and sacred ruling and institutionalized it in Iran after the Arab invasion.

Following the issue of endowments and endowments in Iran, we witnessed that during the current Islamic Republic of Iran, when Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani found himself in a special situation in his political life and when he was likely to lose ownership of an important institution such as the Islamic Azad University, he intended to endow it in order to save it and, of course, to permanently occupy the Islamic Azad University, which has boundless wealth, but Ayatollah Khamenei did not allow him to do so, and as a result, the ownership of this university was taken out of Rafsanjani's hands and it currently continues to operate as one of the institutions under the supervision of the Leader.

One of the most famous endowments of Kermanshah is Sheikh Ali Khan Zanganeh, the prime minister of Shah Suleiman Safavi. In 1093 AH, when he was the ruler of Kermanshah, he dedicated the lands of Chambatan and the Qarawali River from the vast lands of the Bisotun district to the Fatimid Sadats and the renovation of the Bisotun Caravanserai, and ordered the text of the endowment to be engraved on the heart of the Bisotun mountain and next to the famous statue of Hercules. Unfortunately, this engraving was done on a precious stone carving, which completely erased the engraved image of Bahram II of the Parthian period, and of the other two images of this stone carving, which were located on both sides of it, half of each was destroyed from head to toe, while the other half remained.

Tourists who have seen this carving on that historical monument up close have considered Sheikh Ali Khan's action to be a form of barbarity and a lust for destroying works of art. In this endowment deed, Sheikh Ali Khan appoints himself as the trustee, and after him, his sons.

Since endowments are divided into two categories, namely general endowments and special endowments, Sheikh Ali Khan's endowment is of the special endowment type, that is, an endowment that most endowments have made and in this way they place the endowment property in their possession for life and after them their children, generation after generation. It should be noted that the Hajj and Endowment Organization has its own specific approach to these endowments.

Source: HRANA