the latter with the financial support of the French State, programme "Investissements d'avenir, " managed by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-11-LABX-0027-01 Labex RFIEA+).The institutes, with their facilities and staff, provided ideal environments for writing and for exchanges with colleagues from many countries and disciplines, guarding against parochialism. STIAS enhanced my understanding of other societies' engagement with dark pasts. Many fellows, especially from diverse parts of the African continent, enriched my experience. The IEA served as a basis from which to engage with the rich intellectual life of Paris and to reach out to civil society and political actors. I built on benefits received during the summer of 2016 as a guest of the Fondation de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme.More individuals than I can mention merit special mention. I ask those left out for forgiveness. The names of numerous interviewees in Paris, Massachusetts, and Minnesota have to remain anonymous. To them I am especially grateful.In Paris, Liora Israël and Jacques Commaille laid the foundation for a series of successful research visits, and John Hagan and Philip Smith helped pave the way to the French capital.

This essay analyzes a debate among Muslim jurists in French Mandate Syria and Lebanon around whether the family waqf, a form of charitable endowment dedicated to the founder’s family, is a legitimate form of the waqf and whether it should be abolished. I argue that the new categorization of the family waqf as a deviation from real charitable giving was informed by new conceptions of the economy, religion, and charity. Because the debate was among Muslim legal scholars, it also allows us to examine modern changes in the Islamic legal tradition. I show how the debate displays the use of new scientific styles of reasoning among Muslim jurists in the derivation of rules, thereby transforming the legal tradition without rupturing it.

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