A Research on Waqf in the Holy Quran (the Case Study of the Verses “an Interest Free Loan and Philanthropy” (Arabic: بر و القرض الحسن))

Although the holy Quran banned a special types of habs (Arabic: حبس literally means to prevent, restrain) and waqf (Arabic: وقف) being at the age of ignorance (period of jahiliyyah; pre-Islamic period) but it has encouraged to do good (being generous) like waqf with titles such as charity funds, an interest free loan (Arabic: قرض الحسنه qarz hasan), doing good to others (beneficence), philanthropy, infaq (Arabic: إنفاق i.e. ensuring the subsistence of the poor and needy ones among people, specifically the kinsmen by means of providing them with monetary or sustenance aids) and penning. The establishment of the term “waqf” after the stage of establishment (Arabic: تشریع al-tashri') indicates its semantic reality. In this regard the indication of a verse of the holy Quran or verses which have the semantic correlation with the concept of waqf is an issue which is propounded in waqf debate. Although most researchers have explicated this matter that waqf is within the general Quranic titles such as beneficence and philanthropies but some Quran exegetes with observing two traditions related to the waqf of two companions named Abu Talha Ansari and Abu Dehdah Ansari under the verse 92 (the verse of philanthropy) of al-Imran (Arabic: آل عمران) and the verse 245 of al-Baqarah (Arabic: بقره) and the verses of 11 and 18 (the verse of an interest free loan) of al-Hadid (Arabic: حدید) believe that that these verses specially connect to the Islamic legal waqf. This paper has been formed in the descriptive- analytic method and is going to study these two exegetic traditions based on rijali and fiqh al-hadith criteria and also to examine how these two traditions relate to the mentioned verses.