The Approaches Adopted by the Selected States in Appointing Universities as Waqf Managers

Abstract

State laws provide that the State Islamic Religious Council (SIRC) is a ‘sole trustee’ of all waqf properties in such State. Thus, any party, including universities, intending to create waqf, requires authorization of the SIRC beforehand. The permission of SIRC to be sought depends on the location of universities. The willingness of SIRCs to grant the permission to universities depend significantly on their waqf state laws. A state may allow a university to create waqf so long as the provisions of the state enactment allow doing so. However, the managerial status granted to applicant universities are not standardised as each state has different provisions regarding power delegation to universities to manage their waqf assets. In fact, universities in a similar state have acquired different managerial status. The study found that there are three different approaches adopted by the state in granting the managerial status to the universities to manage their waqf assets. By adopting a doctrinal approach and semi-structured interviews method, this study examines the three approaches adopted by the selected states and identifies the relevant provisions of waqf state enactments. The data collected were then analyzed by using content analysis assisted by Atlas. Ti software.