Edinburgh Napier University

  Humanitarian responses, in the wake of complex emergencies, have never been just about supply of monetary assistance and commodities, as the accessibility and availability of expertise and human-capital plays a crucial role in preventing human casualties and ensuring access to the basic needs for survival of those who are affected. The human capital required for a successful humanitarian operation ranges from healthcare professionals to strategists and transporters.
This study examines the concept of waqf (Islamic perpetual endowment) in Islam and attempts to develop a model through which individuals and companies can donate human capital, such as time and expertise, for humanitarian purposes. This examination includes the legal constraints imposed by Islamic law on waqf and the theological argument of using human capital within waqf-able commodities.
We use the result of this examination to propose a model based on waqf for donation of human capital for the Muslim world, which is coherent with the legal norms of Islamic law. For the rationale of this model, we survey and cite the successfulness of faith based schemes and religiously motivated altruistic operations around the world that treat human capital as a charitable commodity.