Building a school or a graveyard on land endowed for a mosque or a madrasa

Question

Question: (1) A God-fearing man made an oral gift (hiba) of a plot of land that he owned and possessed, specifically for the building of a mosque and its courtyard. Accordingly, on part of it a Jami‘ (Friday) mosque was built during his lifetime, and the remaining part has been used as the courtyard of the mosque from that very time, a period of about (?) years. What now requires a fatwa is this: after his death, is it permissible in the Shari‘a for the heirs of the founder of the mosque, or the mutawalli (trustee)

Answer

It is impermissible. Using the plot of land contrary to the purpose for which the waqif (endower) made it a waqf is not permissible, and neither he (the mutawalli) nor the other worshippers and the like — no one at all — has the right in the Shari‘a to spend this waqf on some other purpose contrary to the aim of the waqif, or to transfer it: [ar]شرط الواقف كنص الشارع[/ar] “The…

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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