page_title: Financial endowment
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Financial endowment / History
caption_attribution_description: Photograph taken at&#58; L'Image et le Pouvoir&#160;: le siècle des Antonins, Musée Saint-Raymond, 19 November 2011–18 March 2012&#32;.
context_page_description: A financial endowment is a legal structure for managing, and in many cases indefinitely perpetuating, a pool of financial, real estate, or other investments for a specific purpose according to the will of its founders and donors. Endowments are often structured so that the principal value is kept intact, while the investment income or a small part of the principal is available for use each year.
  Endowments are often governed and managed either as a nonprofit corporation; a charitable foundation; or a private foundation that, while serving a good cause, might not qualify as a public charity. In some jurisdictions, it is common for endowed funds to be established as a trust independent of the organizations or causes the endowment is meant to serve. Institutions that commonly manage endowments include academic institutions; cultural institutions; service organizations; and religious organizations.
  Private endowments are some of the wealthiest entities in the world, notably private higher education endowments. Harvard University's endowment is the largest academic endowment in the world.
context_section_description: The earliest endowed chairs were established by the Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius in Athens in AD 176. Aurelius created one endowed chair for each of the major schools of philosophy: Platonism, Aristotelianism, Stoicism, and Epicureanism. Later, similar endowments were set up in some other major cities of the Empire.
  The earliest universities were founded in Asia and Africa. Their endowment by a prince or monarch and their role in training government officials made early Mediterranean universities similar to Islamic madrasas, although madrasas were generally smaller, and individual teachers, rather than the madrasa itself, granted the license or degree.
  Waqf (Arabic: وَقْف‎; [ˈwɑqf]), also known as 'hubous' (حُبوس) or mortmain property, is a similar concept from  Islamic law, which typically involves donating a building, plot of land or other assets for Muslim religious or charitable purposes with no intention of reclaiming the assets. The donated assets may be held by a charitable trust.
  Ibn Umar reported, Umar Ibn Al-Khattab got land in Khaybar, so he came to the prophet Muhammad and asked him to advise him about it. The Prophet said, 'If you like, make the property inalienable and give the profit from it to charity.'" It goes on to say that Umar gave it away as alms, that the land itself would not be sold, inherited or donated. He gave it away for the poor, the relatives, the slaves, the jihad, the travelers and the guests. And it will not be held against him who administers it if he consumes some of its yield in an appropriate manner or feeds a friend who does not enrich himself by means of it.
  — Ibn Ḥad̲j̲ar al-ʿAsḳalānī , Bulūg̲h̲ al-marām, Cairo n.d., no. 784
  When a man dies, only three deeds will survive him: continuing alms, profitable knowledge and a child praying for him.
  — Ibn Ḥad̲j̲ar al-ʿAsḳalānī , Bulūg̲h̲ al-marām, Cairo n.d., no. 78
  The two oldest known waqfiya (deed) documents are from the 9th century, while a third one dates from the early 10th century, all three within the Abbasid Period. The oldest dated waqfiya goes back to 876 CE, concerns a multi-volume Qur'an edition and is held by the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum in Istanbul. A possibly older waqfiya is a papyrus held by the Louvre Museum in Paris, with no written date but considered to be from the mid-9th century.
  The earliest known waqf in Egypt, founded by financial official Abū Bakr Muḥammad bin Ali al-Madhara'i in 919 (during the Abbasid period), is a pond called Birkat Ḥabash together with its surrounding orchards, whose revenue was to be used to operate a hydraulic complex and feed the poor. In India, wakfs are relatively common among Muslim communities and are regulated by the Central Wakf Council and governed by Wakf Act 1995 (which superseded Wakf Act 1954).
caption: Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic Roman emperor who created the first endowed chair professorships
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