Keeping while Giving: The Perpetuation of Inequalities through Private Islamic Waqfs

Abstract

In premodern Western Europe, private philanthropy played a minimal role in reducing economic inequalities. The pattern might have differed in the premodern Middle East, where Islamic institutions regulated economic life. In the Middle East, trusts known as waqfs used their income partly to finance social services. Because they came to control massive resources, they are thought to have served as conduits for substantial redistribution. Using an original data set of Istanbul waqf deeds from 1453 to 1923, this paper shows that the primary functions of "private waqfs"-waqfs ordinarily founded by people outside the sultan's close circle-were to support founders and their kin in life materially and in afterlife through prayers believed to expiate sins. Supplying temporal social services was among the minor functions of private waqfs; and seldom did these services target the poor. Records of waqf functions and expenditures show that they could not have alleviated poverty appreciably. Their distributional effects were twofold. On the one hand, they perpetuated temporal inequalities through material security to founders, who were rich by standards of the day. On the other hand, they served as vehicles for extending temporal inequalities into the afterworld. Among the founders of private waqfs, elites were disproportionately likely to finance social services. The findings suggest that the patterns of private redistribution in the premodern Middle East resembled those documented for Western Europe.

Keywords: N95, G51, P50, O53, K11 waqf, inequality, elite, redistribution, property rights, wealth shelter, philanthropy, charity, social service, religion, afterlife, Islam, Islamic law, Istanbul, Ottoman Empire

JEL Classification: N95, G51, P50, O53, K11