Guest Author - Serkan Tufan

In the last article, I gave some examples from the crazy charity foundations established in Ottoman State. In this article, I will give examples of Fatih Sultan Mehmed's charities (The Great Sultan of Ottoman) and a little bit about Selahaddin Eyyubi (The Great Sultan of Jerusalem during Crusades)along with other examples to sum up the broad topic of giving and charity in Islam.

Selahaddin Eyyubi (1138-1193), the great King of Jerusalem, allocated all his property to many vakif foundations in Egypt and Syria, yet, he did not have his name written on any of them, instead, he put his commanders, and assistants' names, he did not want to be known and be proud...

One of his vakif foundations was very creative, in Damascus, he built two city fountains, milk would flow from one, and syrup would flow from another. He wanted to do this for the benefit of nursing mothers and caregivers who would go there twice a week and get milk and syrup for their babies.

Fatih Sultan Mehmed, the great Sultan of Ottoman State, allocated one office he earned through his own work, to his foundation, in which, two persons for each street of Istanbul would be employed, they would visit these streets every day and look out for any spit, or disgusting thing and disinfect and clean the streets if necessary.

He also hired 10 surgeons, 10 primary care physician, and 3 nurses to visit each and every home in Istanbul in certain days of the month, look for sick people to do home treatment, and if it is a serious condition, take them to the vakif hospitals for those in need.

He, in his foundation, allocated 100 hunting gun to be given to men when there is not enough food in the city. These men were to go to the Balkan (Bulgaria - Greek) mountains during the proper hunting time and bring animals for people to eat as needed.

Fatih Sultan Mehmed also built a food court for the widows of soldiers and poor. Yet, he specially ordered the employers that the food should be delivered to their homes during a time when nobody sees, to protect their dignity.

Another interesting vakif system was founded for mental patients, where they treated with so much special care, mercy, love, and support, using the water dripping sounds and different musics and other special techniques to treat their mental conditions. I would like to point out that this was back in 13th, 14th century.

Not only for mental patients, but many different free hospitals were operated on vakif. One famous example for medical literature is Karacaahmed (İstanbul) leprosy hospital (1514) and another one in Edirne(1451). Thinking that all around the world, leprosy patients were isolated and left to death until 19th century, it is amazing how they were treated. The hospitals had walk-in hours until noon, then afternoon hours would be allocated for only stay-in patients.

The last example for today is a vakif system for travelers. There were facilities called 'han' and 'karavansaray' in Islam civilizations since the early centuries. Those were built on the sides of interstate roads and routes each apart from the next by the distance (about 27 miles) of one day of travel by camel or horse walk. These facilities were established through vakif and provided free food, shelter, and care for both travelers and their animals. In case something happens to them or their money (rarely), they were insured by just staying in there...they would get their loss compensated by government.

I am hoping these beautiful examples in the series of articles on giving in Islam would mean so much to us in that how Islam leads people to live exemplary lives. To bring these examples out of pages in history is to illustrate the civilization of Islam with its beauty, and take exmaples from it. In fact, one of the opportunities to support the charity for those in need was the holiday of sacrifice we observed on December 20th this year. Muslims all around the world did many charities. Only a small example, a group of volunteers, distributed help packages to over 300 thousand people in a region in Turkey during the Eid al Adha (Feast - holiday of sacrifice).

Islam constantly emphasize and push us to think about others and those in greater need, I myself have seen really poor people in Turkey, allocating some of their income to those in greater need, always thinking and supporting each other as a community since Allah is sincerely loved and admired in the hearts. Surprisingly, we never get to hear those great examples from news, media, even in academic books, or photos. The ever bad portrayals should not deceive you. Those are the co-products of unfortunately bad intended media and groups of uneducated and bad-example Muslims or people who pretend to be Muslims to ruin the image of Islam in people’s eyes, minds, and hearts.

In the next article, I would like to introduce a great website about Prophet Muhammad that I came across recently.