Islam in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives - Islamic Books ...

H i s to r i cal Introduction and Overv i e w 2 1Public well in the Wadi Hadhramawt, Yemen. In many parts of the Muslim world, waqf havetraditionally funded such public wells and water fountains. (R. Michael Feener)tablished schools had come to occupy the highest positions in a new kind ofeducational institution that was to spread from Baghdad throughout the Muslimworld—the m a d r a s a . The earliest m a d r a s as were established for the teachingof Islamic law according to one of the established Sunni schools (Makdisi1961). By the fourteenth century, under the rule of the Mamluk dynasty inSyria and Egypt, many of the most prominent m a d r a s as were being built in acruciform style in order to house teachers from all four of the schools simultane o u s l y, one in each of the four wings of the building. The accommodation ofall four schools within a single institution is a remarkable testament to theopenness to religious opinions and the complex dynamics of Muslim unityand diversity in the premodern period.M a d r a s a institutions stood largely outside direct state control, for they wereprivately founded and funded through w a q f , a special type of religious endowmentthrough which a person could set aside a portion of his wealth to fundmosques, schools, hospitals, or other institutions of social welfare. Once a Muslimhad formally established a w a q f , he or she could not impose any furtherconditions on the use of the funds, a stipulation that ensured a considerableamount of freedom—academic and otherwise—to the teachers attached tothe m a d r a s as. Wa q f were also important in providing one of the major avenuesfor women’s participation in public religious and political life in some Muslim