Waqf in Central Asia: Four Hundred Years in the History of a Muslim Shrine, 1480-1889

Waqfs, or religious endowments, have long been at the very center of daily Islamic life, establishing religious, cultural, and welfare institutions and serving as a legal means to keep family property intact through several generations. In this book R. D. McChesney focuses on the major Muslim shrine at Balkh—once a flourishing city on an ancient trade route in what is now northern Afghanistan—and provides a detailed study of the political, economic, and social conditions that influenced, an...