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Is it permissible for my grandmother to retract her وقف (waqf) of a piece of land after she intended it and verbally declared it, but before official procedures were completed, and she is now in need of money?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The jurists differed on the ruling concerning an endowment (waqf) of land where the beneficiary (mawquf 'alayh) was not specified. The Shafi'is and Muhammad ibn al-Hasan from the Hanafis deemed it invalid, whereas the majority considered it valid. Abu Hanifa held that it is a vow to donate the produce of the land, and the land itself remains the property of the endower. According to the Hanbalis, the endowment is valid and its proceeds are disbursed to the heirs of the endower; if there are no heirs, then to the poor and needy. As for the Malikis, it is valid according to them and its proceeds are disbursed according to custom or to the poor. It is permissible to act upon any of these opinions unless a Sharia judge rules otherwise. The official procedures are for documentation only.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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