31/07/2025
The Mat, the Madrasa, and the Mission: Reviving Waqf for a Sustainably Empowered Ulama
By Abdullahi Abubakar Lamido
Last week, as I passed through a familiar lane in the heart of our neighbourhood, my eyes fell on a humble compound shaded by an old mango tree. There sat a scholar; our Sheikh, on his well-worn prayer mat, muttaki’an (reclining) with grace and serenity. Around him, a few students sat in semi-circles, hunched over timeworn books, pages softened by years of study and fingers that turned them in search of knowledge. The scene evoked memories from over two decades ago; days when we, then young and eager, sat at his feet learning Nahw, Lugha, Fiqh, and Balagha.
The Sheikh had taught us not just words, but wisdom. Not just rules, but refinement. Some of us who sat in that open-air classroom now teach Islam on television stations, through YouTube, and in city mosques. But he; he remains rooted to his mat, still giving, still teaching, still poor.
This is not because he failed. On the contrary, it is because he succeeded, in the most inconvenient way possible.
The Scholar Who Couldn’t Leave His Post
The Sheikh has been teaching continuously for over forty years. His days begin before dawn and end well after nightfall. After Fajr, he teaches until breakfast. From breakfast until noon. After Zuhr, more students come. Then Asr, then Maghrib. Like a candle burning itself to give light, he has no time for trading, farming, or running a business. He has wives. He has children. He has bills.
And yet, those who benefit from his light go back to their businesses, their work, their farms. He remains.
Should he leave his post in search of sustenance, we will lose a link in the sacred chain; a bridge between generations of authentic scholarship. This is not a man who merely preaches. He produces scholars.
The question is: Should society simply leave such men to fend for themselves?
A Divine Division of Labour
Allah has already answered this question in the Qur’an:
“And it is not [possible] for the believers to go forth [to battle] all at once. For there should separate from every division of them a group [remaining] to obtain understanding in the religion and warn their people when they return to them that they might be cautious.”
— (Qur’an 9:122)
And again:
“...And others travel throughout the land seeking of the bounty of Allah, and others fight in the cause of Allah...”
— (Qur’an 73:20)
What the Qur'an teaches us is that while some should be in the military, some should go for business and wealth creation, at the very time others should engage in educational activities.
The idea is simple: not everyone should do everything. Some must be full-time scholars. Some must be full-time supporters. Some must be strategists. Others, financiers. That’s how a community functions; a divine division of labour.
Yet in our modern ummah, we plan for everything—engineers, doctors, pilots. We even talk about doctor–patient ratios as per WHO (which recommends 1 doctor per 1,000 people). But where is our Alim–Ummah ratio? Where are our structured institutions dedicated to the production of true scholars?
Waqf: The Lifeline of Classical Scholarship
Let us turn the pages of history.
There was a time when Waqf, charitable endowments created for the sake of Allah, ensured that scholars never needed to ask. From Damascus to Delhi, Fez to Fustat, waqf-funded institutions were the backbones of Islamic learning.
If a madrasa was built by waqf, the books were waqf-provided. The ink and paper? Waqf. The food served to students? Waqf. Scholar salaries? Yes, generous stipends, from waqf funds. Some scholars even had stipends equivalent to ministers in today’s governments, not because they were rich, but because the ummah was wise enough to keep them independent.
When colonial powers invaded Muslim lands, they noticed that some of the fiercest resistance came from independent-minded, waqf-supported scholars. These men could not be bribed. They could not be fired. They had no salary from the state. So what did the colonisers do?
They attacked the institution of waqf itself.
They shut down independent awqaf. They redirected the funds. They established “Ministries of Awqaf”, not to preserve them, but to bring them under control. The scholars who once spoke truth to power now had to think twice. Their stipends came from the very powers they wished to criticise.
This was not accidental. It was strategic.
Rebuilding the Waqf-Based Ulama-dom
Imagine now a town not far from ours. A young man named Harith has just returned from six years of intensive study in a renowned Islamic university abroad. Fluent in Arabic, grounded in classical texts, gentle in demeanour, and fiery in vision, Harith dreams of opening a madrasa in his village. But where will he teach? What will he eat? Who will pay for books, for chalk, for even the plastic chairs his students would sit on?
Then comes a call.
A Waqf Hub in the regional capital, recently established, has included Harith in its next cohort of scholars. They offer him a small house in the village. A monthly stipend enough to survive with dignity. A modest teaching grant to run a community madrasa. Even a solar-powered laptop and microphone to begin recording his own lessons online. He breaks down in tears, not from sadness, but from the weight of a dream no longer deferred.
Another scene: In a city mosque, two elderly scholars—one a renowned hadith teacher, the other a master of Maliki fiqh—meet for tea in a small room provided by the same waqf network. They’ve been granted stipends not out of charity, but as a recognition of sacred service. For the first time in decades, they receive medical allowances for their wives, and a transport card for their daily movements. Their time, finally, is freed from chasing survival.
Somewhere else, in a dusty village in Northern Nigeria, a teacher of children named Mallam Isa is summoned to a town centre. His school, a thatched-roof madrasa on the edge of a rice field, has been visited by a team from the Waqf Development Corps. They give him a grant to expand the hut into a three-room structure, provide whiteboards, pens, and uniforms for his pupils—and a quarterly allowance for him. For the first time, he does not have to teach with hunger gnawing his belly.
Elsewhere still, a young, tech-savvy student from Bauchi, trained in both Qur’anic recitation and video editing, launches a YouTube channel called Minbarul Ulama. It’s part of the Digital Da’wah Initiative, funded by an endowment started with just a few generous businessmen pooling money into a waqf account. The student now trains other young scholars to present Islam in Hausa and Arabic on social media, television, and podcast platforms.
And what sustains all these? Not external grants. Not unpredictable donations. But endowed assets including shops in town, farmlands leased to farmers, apartments rented out, solar farms, and transport businesses whose profits flow into a central fund.
A fund made possible by those who believed in the future of knowledge.
A fund that tells scholars: “You are not alone.”
This is not fantasy. This is how Muslim civilisation once flourished. In fact, the Ottomans perfected it to the point where it was said:
“Thanks to the Waqfs that flourished during the Ottoman Empire, a person would have been born into a waqf house, slept in a waqf cradle, eaten and drunk from waqf properties, read waqf books, been taught in a waqf school, received his salary from a waqf administration, and when he died, placed in a waqf coffin and buried in a waqf cemetery.”
That is not exaggeration. That was vision, put into action.
This is Not Dependence. This is Empowered Independence.
Some may ask: Are we not making the ulama dependent?
No. This is not dependence. It is institutional independence.
Doctors don’t beg. They’re salaried. Soldiers are not beggars. They’re on payroll. Scholars are the heirs of prophets. Why should they scavenge for sustenance?
By creating independent streams of income through waqf, we are freeing them. We are empowering them to speak the truth, to teach without distraction, to live with dignity.
The Prophet ﷺ said:
“The scholars are the heirs of the Prophets.” (Abu Dawood, Tirmidhi)
He also said:
“When a person dies, his deeds come to an end except for three: Sadaqah Jariyah (a continuing charity), beneficial knowledge, or a righteous child who prays for him.” (Sahih Muslim)
Waqf is the engine that can drive all three.
Let us build. Let us endow. Let us empower.
So that when our children pass through that same street years from now, they will still see a scholar, reclining on his mat, not poor, not abandoned, but honoured. Teaching not from desperation, but from divine inspiration.
Abdullahi Abubakar Lamido
[email protected]
Gombe
5 Safar 1447 AH (30/07/25)
