ИСТИНА

The history of waqfs in Republican Turkey is full of dramatic collisions: partial expropriation of waqf properties, radical revision of waqf laws and regulations, attempts to “secularize” waqfs in order to place them at the service of state interests. All this was incident to the development of waqfs not only in Turkey but in many other Middle Eastern states in the 20th century (Iran under Reza Shah Pahlavi, Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nasser, Syria under Husni al-Za’im and successive military governments, Algeria under Houari Boumediene etc). Waqfs were mostly sacrificed when the rising discordance between modernization requirements and ability to satisfy these needs forced the state to adopt a mobilization strategy of recourse exploitation which meant an overconcentration of all resources and constantly increasing pressure on society.