Law and economic efficiency: English private property law and Muslim family endowments (awqāf) in British India

"The transformation of indigenous legal norms into state service under colonialism is a well-told story. Relatively lesser attention is paid to the response of natives who were subjected to the transformed law. This paper measures the response of Indian Muslims to the private property law regime for land introduced by the British in India in the late nineteenth century. It is based on the cases decided between 1800 and 1950 by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council—the highest court of appeal in the British Empire. I argue that not only Indian Muslims played an important role in the operation of the legal system, laymen also adjusted their modes of disposal of landed property by taking into account legal developments. This paper analyses the origins of various types of Muslim endowments (awqāf, singular waqf) in the social and political context of various Indian provinces. These provinces were subjected to different property law regime. It challenges the traditional view proposed by Kozlowski that the family waqf originated in British India as a result of the strict application of Islamic inheritance law and the introduction of private property regime under the English legal system. Rather, it shows that the pattern of the creation of endowments was affected by multiple factors which included politics, history and law. The land policy of the East India Company and confiscation of properties after the 1857 uprising were important political factors which affected the establishment of endowments. This study contributes to the debates on law and development, colonialism and law, and legal transplants."