A Waqf Call
22nd April 2025
Last week I wrote about the Grand Mufti of Pakistan, who had just announced a mandatory global jihad to liberate “Palestine” on behalf of the Ummah, the worldwide body of the Islamic faithful.
Now would be a good time to dust off some of my decades-old material about waqf, which is the principle codified in Islamic law on which the Grand Mufti’s call to jihad is based.
According to the time-honored doctrines of Islamic jurisprudence, any plot of ground that has ever been conquered or occupied by Muslims remains the sacred territory of the Ummah in perpetuity. It doesn’t matter what may have occurred later — the Reconquista, the establishment of Israel, the Raj in India — Muslim land is Muslim land forever.
Legally recognized domains of Islam are considered to be held as a waqf, or scared trust, by the entire Ummah. These waqf territories include not only current Muslim-majority nations and previously conquered lands, but also the buildings and grounds of mosques and madrassas, Muslim cemeteries, and even the homes and community buildings where Muslims live and congregate.
Western officials do not realize the significance of opening an official Muslim cemetery within their jurisdiction, but the Muslims do: they know that by doing so they have carved out a little piece of Dar al-Islam within Dar al-Harb, in perpetuity.
This is an important issue that until recently was of no concern in the West. But India is another matter: since most of India was at one time or another conquered territory for Islam, the waqf issue there is very real and urgent. India has Waqf Boards (or councils) charged with overseeing Islamic real estate. Based on waqf principles, the Taj Mahal has been claimed by Muslims as Islamic property.