The Islamic Origin

The chapter discusses the issue of the Islamic origin of the common law trust. The research is oriented towards the comparative analysis of the traditional models of the trust and the waqf. The parallel is drawn between their juridical and linguistic peculiarities. The analysis reveals that due to perpetuity and a donor’s freedom of choice to bind an administrator, the waqf has not developed into a self-governing institution. Moreover, the family waqf gradually loses ground, while the trust increases its domain. The above discussion enables us to suppose that the Islamic origin of the trust is less probable.