Analysis

The Ministry of Endowments under Syria’s transitional government has begun reorganising the management of waqf (“endowment”) properties after many years in which these assets were subject to centralised administration and long-term investment and rental contracts. A waqf is, essentially, money or property dedicated to a religious, charitable, or social purpose. Its proceeds are removed from ordinary individual circulation and remain tied to the purpose specified by the founder of the waqf. According to the ministry, today’s reorganisation involves documenting endowment properties, recovering properties it considers lost or unlawfully occupied, and reassessing the rents charged on endowment real estate. The ministry presents these measures as part of an effort to regulate the endowments sector and collect the proceeds generated by its assets. However, a request by one ministry official for Ottoman archives from Turkey has raised legal and social concerns, particularly about the possible use of these records to trace certain properties and reconsider usufruct and rental agreements that have existed for many years.

Legislative Decree No. 66 of 2012 was issued as a tool for rezoning large areas of unlicensed and informal housing in Damascus. Over more than a decade, however, it has become one of Syria’s most sensitive property and housing issues. The problem is no longer confined to an urban plan or an administrative delay, but lies in a lengthy process that changed the very form of the right itself: from direct ownership of a property to zoning shares, from an existing home to a promise of alternative housing, and from property available for everyday use to a right requiring proof, valuation, allocation, financing and years of waiting. Decree No. 66 has thus become a test of how rights are produced within a reconstruction project before it is a test of the ability to construct buildings, roads and infrastructure.