Women's Contributions to Endowments (Awqāf) in the City of Algiers during the Eighteenth Century (A Study Derived from Sharīʿa Court Records)

Abstract

The Sharīʿa court records of Algiers from the eighteenth century demonstrate that women were not merely marginal actors but rather independent economic and social agents, to whom both religious law (Sharīʿa) and positive law guaranteed full proprietary rights and legal capacity. These registers furnish precise and detailed evidence revealing how Algerian women of the eighteenth century exercised their economic and social rights through the institution of waqf (religious endowment), wherein family endowments (al-waqf al-dharrī) in particular functioned as a form of social protection mechanism devised by women to confront the vicissitudes of the era.