Governance

Who decides whether a way of giving is allowed?

A person does, never the software. The site can write up a way of giving, list the sources behind it, and refuse to offer one no scholar has approved, but it cannot decide, and a ruling naming nobody could not be recorded at all. The rulings here were made by our own scholar, recorded as Scholar (Internal), which is a role rather than a legal name, because names are personal data and are not published here.

Is a ruling here a fatwa for me?

No. A ruling is recorded for one organisation and applies to that organisation alone, and none has been given to anyone reading this. Each ruling also names where it came from, because our own specification and a published standard are not the same kind of authority and you should be able to tell which you are reading.

Is this the Shariah, or the law of a country?

The Shariah. No national jurisdiction is active yet: the only legal home is a reference one that admits every asset class and refuses whatever contravenes the Shariah, and the layer for each country’s law comes next.

Shariah compliance comes first rather than alongside the law: a Shariah failure means the waqf never came into being, while a legal failure can be put right. A national rule does not displace a Shariah rule by arriving later, and where the two differ, the difference and its reason are recorded rather than absorbed.

Which standards do you follow?

The full list, taken straight from our records, is under Sources. It includes the Shariah Standards of AAOIFI (the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions), resolutions of the International Islamic Fiqh Academy of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the classical positions of the four schools, and local fatwa where a country restricts a form. A source marked Not yet confirmed has no scholar’s name on it yet: treat it as a lead, not as proof.

Some of these go against the majority view. Why offer them?

Because a school that permits something holds a real position, and saying so openly is better than quietly offering only what everybody agrees on. Where a form follows a minority view the ruling says so in plain words, so you know what you are choosing before you choose it. Giving for a fixed term, and giving the use of something while keeping the thing itself, are the two clearest cases.

If a ruling sets a condition, do you enforce it?

Only where that condition is built into the system; otherwise it is written down and nothing holds a waqf to it. Each form’s page says which applies, and seeing a form on offer is not evidence that its conditions have been met.

What has to happen before a real waqf is final?

A scholar independent of us has to examine it and sign, and the paperwork has to be checked: that you own what you are giving and may give it, who will hold it, and whatever else the law of your country requires. If something is wrong in Shariah the waqf does not stand at all; if something is missing in the paperwork it can be put right. Either way we do not treat the waqf as made until it is settled.