EMPIRE OF THE UMAYYADS 77Under the Umayyads, it wasn't just Arab-inspired commercial energy
that permeated the Muslim world but also Islam-inspired social ideals.
Nouveau riche lords made abundant donations to philanthropic religious
foundations called waqfi. Social pressure drove them to it, but so did reli-
gious incentives: everyone wants the esteem of his or her society, and a rich
man could garner such esteem by patronizing a waqf.
In theory, a waqf could not be shut down by its founder. Once born, it
owned itself and had a sovereign status. Think of it as a Muslim version of
a nonprofit corporation set up for charitable purposes. Under Muslim law,
the waqfs could not be taxed. They collected money from donors and dis-
tributed it to the poor, built and ran mosques, operated schools, hospitals,
and orphanages, and generally provided the burgeoning upper classes with
a means for expressing their religious and charitable urges and to feel good
about themselves even while lolling in wealth.
Of course, someone had to administer a waqf. Someone had to conduct
its business, set its policies, and manage its finances, and it couldn't be just
anyone. To possess religious credibility, a waqf had to be staffed by people
known for piety and religious learning. The more famously religious its
staff, the more prestigious the waqf and the more respect accrued to its
founders and donors.
Since the waqfs ended up controlling real estate, buildings, and endow-
ment funds, their management offered an avenue of social mobility in
Muslim society (even though many waqfs became a device by which rich
families protected their wealth from taxation). If you acquired a reputation
for religious scholarship, you might hope to gain a position with a waqf,
which gave you status if not riches, and you didn't have to hail from a fa-
mous family to become a famous religious scholar. You just had to have
brains and a willingness to practice piety and study hard.
On the other hand, you did have to know Arabic, because it was the sacred
language: to Muslims, the Qur'an itself, in Arabic, written or spoken, is the
presence of God in the world: translations of the Qur' an are not the Qur' an.
Besides, all the pertinent scholarly books were written in Arabic. And you did,
of course, have to be Muslim. What's more, the Umayyads soon declared Ara-
bic the official language of government, replacing Persian in the east and
Greek in the west and various local languages everywhere else. So Umayyad
times saw an Arabization and Islamification of the Muslim realm.