Discover the meaning of the term Mawquf (مَوْقُوف) in Islamic vocabulary.
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Updated on 11 April 2026 at 1:05 AM
📖 3 min readAmong the masters of arabism: the word one halts upon, that is, which takes no vowel, as one says the present imperative is the last of verbs halted. In the terminology of hadith usul: what is related from the Companions, of word or deed, connected or cut, so that one halts at them and does not pass on to the Messenger of Allah.
Valid in its essence and description, yielding ownership by way of suspense without perfecting it because of another’s right attaching to it; thus the null and the defective are distinguished, each definition excluding the other. The chapter was titled « the defective » though it holds the null, the disapproved and the reprehensible, so frequent are they by the multiplicity of their causes. In Tabyin al-Haqa’iq: because corruptions are an embracing qualifier like the general qualifier; the null fails in essence and description, the defective fails in description not essence, the reprehensible fails the qualifier of perfection; failure of description embraces them all as locomotion does animal and plant. The criterion distinguishing the defective from the null: if either counter-value is not property in a revealed law, the sale is void, whether subject or price; the sale of carrion or of a free man is void. If property in some laws and not others, fit to be deemed a price, the sale is defective: selling a slave for wine or wine for a slave is defective; if the wine must be the subject, the sale is void, as selling wine for dirhams or dirhams for wine. In al-Kifaya: if either or both counter-values are unlawful, the sale is defective; the defective is wider than the null, every null being defective, not conversely. In Ahkam al-Fusul: the mawqouf is that whereby one halts at the narrator without it reaching the Prophet.
That whose effect is suspended upon the leave of the owner and the buyer.
What is still while seeming movable; as what awaits the sultan’s interposition in its detention or return.
It is the waqf, to come; it is also applied to a contract valid in essence and description, yielding ownership by suspense without perfecting it, because of another’s right attaching to it.