Thinking in The Role of Waqf and Charity Affair in The Field of Science and Technology

Abstract

A benevolent act is associated with voluntary helps to the needy people, dedicating time to voluntary charity works like looking after the elderly in elderly houses, or giving money for improving peoples’ lives in different fields and mostly concentrating on vulnerable groups. These are the most recognized procedures of benevolent acts. Adopting a novel point of view, can we say that a benevolent act may be aimed at technology and science development? Through concentrating on the concept of waqf, the present paper surveys feasibility, necessity, and advantages of promoting the charity culture of helping the institutes of science and technology. By surveying the historical trend of the fields of waqf in Iran and reviewing successful models in the world, the study concludes that directing charity activities toward scientific and technology development and development of startups and knowledge-based companies in particular, results in several times more value added for the society as a whole. This is a kind of charity for which cultural works in the society and among charity payers is the most important driver.

Keywords

• charity affair
• waqf
• development of science and technology
• knowledge based companies
• startups