Al- Imam Mansoor Al-Buhooti's Fatwa on an Issue Regarding Endowments (Awqaf)

Abstract

This research is an investigation and study of a fatwa by Imam Mansoor Al-Buhooti, who died in 1051 AH and was the most prominent Hanbali jurist of his time. The fatwa pertains to an enquiry from one of the leading scholars of Najd, located in central Arabia, about a delicate issue regarding endowments (Awqaf). The issue had not been mentioned before in the jurisprudential books, and many scholars of Najd and Al-Ahsa belonging to the Hanbali, Shafi`i, and Hanafi schools had different opinions on it at that time. The issue is stated as follows: if the endower says "I endow my two sons so and so", and has a third son who is not mentioned in the statement. Further the endower does not refer to the second-degree descendants who shall receive the revenue of the endowment after the first-degree descendants have died, who are his two sons; then who shall be the legitimate inheritor of the revenue of the endowment after the first-degree descendants, who are his two mentioned sons, have died.