Waqf: When Holding Back Actually Means Letting Go

In many cities, I am often taken to see a plot of land.

Usually by the roadside. Fenced in with corrugated iron that has begun to rust. Overgrown with waist-high couch grass. Then someone says, in a strange tone — somewhere between pride and bitterness: “This is waqf land, sir. It has been like this for twenty years.”

Twenty years. Two generations. One good intention, asleep.

I always come home from places like that with a question that is not easy to voice in front of my host: whose land is this, really?

What Is Being Held?

Linguistically, waqf means to hold — al-habs. But to hold what?

This is where many people go wrong from the very first step. What is held in waqf is not its benefit, but its principal. Its core asset. The body of the wealth. Land, buildings, money, shares — all of it is held so that it does not diminish, does not change hands, and is not consumed.

The Prophet Muhammad SAW formulated it most concisely when Umar bin Khattab came seeking guidance about his finest land in Khaybar: hold the principal, and give away its yield in charity. The scholars later condensed this into a single maxim that forms the heart of all waqf jurisprudence — habsul ashl wa tasbilul tsamarah. That land was then not sold, not gifted, and not inherited; only its fruit flowed out.

The paradox thus becomes clear. Holding and releasing are not two contradictory attitudes; they work on different objects. The principal is held precisely so that the benefit can be released. Ownership is frozen precisely so that benefit can move.

A healthy waqf always has two movements at once: one hand grips the principal tightly, the other opens wide to distribute its yield. If both hands grip, the waqf freezes. If both hands are open, the wealth is depleted and it is demoted to ordinary charity.

Law Number 41 of 2004 translated this meaning into the language of the state. Waqf is not merely a righteous deed. Nor is it charity with a larger nominal value. Waqf is a legal act. There is a declaration. There is a waqif (donor). There is a nazhir (endowment manager). There is property whose existence is safeguarded. There is benefit that is kept flowing. The last two elements are not two separate provisions — they are one breath: the principal is protected, the yield is channelled.

For the purpose of waqf is indeed not to exhaust wealth. Nor merely to preserve it. But to safeguard its principal so that its benefit never ceases.

The Unnamed, Yet Lived By

Interestingly, the Qur’an never mentions the term waqf explicitly. Not a single verse. Yet nearly all of the companions in the Prophet’s SAW closest circle became its practitioners.

Umar was merely the first. Uthman bin Affan bought the Well of Raumah and handed it over to the people of Madinah. Abu Talhah gave up the garden he loved most. Many other companions followed the same path.

As if they understood something deeper than mere terminology. That giving is good. But there is a higher form of giving. Giving without expecting a return. Releasing without wanting to own again. Perpetuating benefit, even after life has ended.

And they understood one more thing we often overlook: waqf does not end at the declaration. The Well of Raumah became a blessing not because it was purchased, but because its water kept flowing for the ummah, day after day, for centuries. The well was held; its water was released. What history records is not the transaction, but that unbroken flow.

So, Whose Is It?

Back to the question at the edge of that couch-grass-covered land. If the waqif has released ownership, whose property does the waqf become?

Not the waqif’s. From the moment the declaration is spoken, that ownership is finished. It cannot be inherited, cannot be sold, cannot be reclaimed. All that continues to belong to the waqif is the stream of reward for as long as the waqf’s benefit remains alive.

Does it then become the nazhir’s? Also no. The nazhir does not receive an inheritance. He is not managing a company’s assets. He may not treat waqf property as personal possession. His mandate is to safeguard, develop, and ensure its benefit continues to be felt by the ummah.

Waqf belongs to Allah. The waqif surrenders it. The nazhir manages it. Society enjoys its benefit. And Allah rewards it all.

That is the beauty of waqf. It is not a relationship between giver and receiver. It is a collaboration towards heaven.

But it is precisely at this point that, in practice, our troubles begin.

We Do Not Lack Waqifs; We Have Too Many “Owners”

Having spent years in the field, I have reached a conclusion that is not always comfortable to say. Waqf in this country rarely fails because of a shortage of waqifs. It more often fails because too many parties still feel they own it.

The waqif’s family who feel entitled to control it, because “that was grandfather’s land once”. Administrators reluctant to share control, because “I am the one who has looked after it all these years”. Institutions that keep the certificate as a symbol of grandeur, not as a working mandate. All feel they are guarding it. Yet what is actually happening is holding — in the wrong sense.

Back to the earlier maxim: the correct holding is holding the principal. The wrong holding is holding its yield as well.

And there lies our ailment. The couch-grass-covered land I described at the start is in truth a waqf whose principal has been perfectly preserved — not sold, not gifted, not inherited — but whose fruit has never been released, not a single grain. Legally it is valid. In spirit it is paralysed. Half the maxim is carried out, the other half neglected, and we call it safeguarding a trust.

Figures That Should Make Us Restless

The Indonesian Waqf Board (BWI) estimates the potential of national cash waqf at around Rp180 trillion per year — the largest in the world. Its realisation, according to the Chair of BWI, stands at only around Rp2.3 trillion. Not even two per cent.

Land assets are similar. More than 450,000 waqf sites are recorded across the country; only about a tenth are considered to have productive development potential. As of April 2026, the Ministry of Religious Affairs recorded that 287,162 waqf land plots had been certified, covering approximately 276 million square metres. That is a serious achievement deserving of gratitude — but let us be honest about what to call it: certification is the work of habsul ashl, securing the principal. It has not yet touched tasbilul tsamarah, channelling its fruit. We have only completed half the maxim.

The most striking figures come from the human side. As of 2024, only around 4,117 nazhir held national competency certification (SKKNI). Compare that with the hundreds of thousands of waqf sites they must manage. The ratio is nearly impossible.

We are rich in waqifs. We are poor in nazhir.

The 2026 National ZISWAF Survey adds another dimension: active public participation in waqf stands at only around 5.8 per cent; 95.5 per cent of waqf transactions are still conducted offline; understanding of cash waqf stands at only 46.5 per cent — even though public interest in it reaches 72.3 per cent.

Read those last two figures side by side. Interest at 72 per cent, understanding at 46 per cent. It means the ummah is not short of intention. The ummah is short of explanation, channels, and trust. And all of that is not the waqif’s business. That is the nazhir’s homework.

The Nazhir: Silent Work That Determines Civilisation

Never underestimate the role of a nazhir. It is in the nazhir’s hands that a waqf can live. Or die.

The same plot of land can become a Quran memorisation school, a school, a hospital, a productive garden, or an economic empowerment centre — if it is in the hands of a visionary nazhir. Conversely, it can remain empty land covered in couch grass for twenty years if managed without vision.

That is why I wish to propose a firmer way of seeing things: the nazhir is a waqif who endows himself.

The waqif gifts his wealth. The nazhir gifts his time, energy, mind, competence, and integrity. Both release something valuable. Both own nothing of the outcome. Both move towards the same goal.

If we truly believe in that framework, the consequence is clear: being a nazhir can no longer be regarded as a leftover duty, an honorary post, or a part-time job for administrators who are already busy. For a mandate without capacity is another form of negligence.

Three Shifts We Must Begin

If waqf is to return to being an engine of civilisation — as it once financed the universities, hospitals, and libraries of the Islamic world for centuries — at least three shifts must be worked on together.

First, from holding the principal to channelling its yield. Safeguarding assets is the minimal obligation; it is only half the maxim. The measure of a waqf’s success is not how many hectares we have managed to retain, but how many people’s lives change each year because of it. The principal is the means; the fruit is the goal. As long as our annual reports contain only land area and certificate numbers — not the number of beneficiaries — we are only doing habsul ashl and have not truly performed waqf.

Second, from volunteer nazhir to professional nazhir. Waqf requires people who are trustworthy and simultaneously capable of assessing business viability, drawing up business models, calculating risk, and being accountable for the numbers. Certification, cadre-building, and mentoring of nazhir must become a national agenda pursued as seriously as land certification. Protecting assets without building their managers is like building a bank without bankers.

Third, from waqf as monument to waqf as infrastructure. Until now, waqf has largely stopped at three things: mosques, madrasas, and graves. All are noble. But the ummah today also needs affordable hospitals, quality schools, clean water, energy, food security, and jobs. The 2024–2029 National Waqf Roadmap even positions waqf as a pillar of economic growth and resilience. That is the right direction. What remains is our courage to translate it at the village and mosque level.

And allow me to add one thing often considered technical, when in truth it is spiritual: transparency.

Open annual reports, honest audits, and easily accessible digital reporting are not an administrative burden. They are the nazhir’s way of honouring the waqif who can no longer ask questions. Many of our waqifs have passed away. They are the principals who will never come to collect. Precisely because of that, reporting becomes an act of worship.

The True Elite

Perhaps that is why waqf has always been the practice of an elite. Not elite because of wealth, but elite because of the breadth of their soul.

For many people are capable of generating wealth. Many are also capable of donating it. But only a few can truly release their sense of ownership.

And fewer still are willing to devote their lives to guarding that trust — working for years in a name that is not their own, on land that is not theirs, for results they will never enjoy.

Between the two, a civilisation is born.

I imagine one day returning to that couch-grass-covered land. Its corrugated iron fence has been replaced. Standing upon it is something alive — a school, a clinic, or a garden sustaining dozens of families. No grand name is displayed there. The waqif has long since passed. The nazhir works in silence.

And its benefit keeps flowing, like the water of the Well of Raumah that never truly ran dry.

That is waqf.

Holding its principal, so that its benefit can truly be released.

Ardiansyah Ihsan, Islamic philanthropy activist and developer of a digital fundraising ecosystem.