4 - The unsettling of endowments

Summary

In this world, we worry about our daily bread.

At the thought of heaven, we must tremble

in expectation of Judgment Day.

“Prosperity” is only a word, we find it not

in this world or the next.

Mir Sawda

Deeds of endowment were couched in the language of eternity. Their material and spiritual purposes were supposed to be fixed “always” and “forever” (hameshah). The arrangements made for distributing their income were intended to go on “through the generations” (naslān b'ad naslān). The hope they expressed for permanence flew in the face of the experiences of their authors. After all, these men and women constructed endowments which suited the various political and economic changes they witnessed. They saw old kings depart and new ones arrive. They dealt with new laws derived from British customs which replaced older notions of how to accumulate and spend wealth. Though they tried to preserve some of the values of pre-British societies, in the end they had to take account of the different context in which those values operated. Each endowment was an attempt to balance the status of a “chief” (rais) and the demands of the “little kingdom” (riasat) with those of a system which labelled founders “landlords” and their domains “estates”. Every waqif wanted his or her offspring to inherit the fruits of that ingenuity.

In both the temporal and spiritual realms endowments sought to preserve the world of their founders. As was usually a senior generation's wont, they put sage advice in their deeds designed to help their heirs keep that world intact. They counselled thrift and the need to reinvest profits.