Islam's alternative to the nonprofit corporation was the waqf, a trust established in accordance with Shariah to deliver specified services forever, through trustees bound by essentially fixed instructions.
"From the moment Islamic Jerusalem was built, we were part of it".The library was set up by Hajj Raghib al-Khalidi, an Islamic judge, as part of a larger parcel of family property established by a waqf, or trust.
The Organisation of the Islamic Conference said that the reopening risked "dragging the region into a religious war" and claimed the building was historically on a waqf (Islamic trust) land.
"We stress our absolute rejection of... all measures by the Occupation (Israel) that would change the historical and religious status in Jerusalem and its sacred sites," the Palestinian grand mufti, acting Palestinian chief justice and Jordanian-run Waqf religious trust said in a joint statement.
The Palestinians said the date palms were planted on lands they had rented from the Waqf, or Islamic trust.
This has been due in part to detailed Israeli security arrangements, and to the firm hand of the Islamic Waqf council, the trust now appointed by the Jordanians that has administered the site since the Siege of Jerusalem, in 1187.
Darwaza became a member of the Arab Executive Committee and in 1930 was appointed by rival nationalist Haj Amin al-Husseini (now the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem) as the General Administrator of the Waqf (Islamic religious trust) under the Supreme Muslim Council.
He ruled that the mount, known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif (or Noble Sanctuary), where the golden Dome of the Rock has stood since the seventh century after Christ, would remain an exclusively Muslim place of worship, administered by the Waqf, or Muslim religious trust.
Damascus developed into a major religious and educational centre, with emirs competing to build madrasahs (religious colleges) and qubbahs (funerary domes) and to bestow them with generous waqfs (land held in trust and dedicated to religious or educational purposes) to support their teachers and students.
