The Tithe in Old Palestine

June 17, 2012

I recently came across a fascinating book entitled The Handbook of Palestine by H.C. Luke and E. Keith-Roach. Produced in 1922 by the British Mandate government which had just taken control of the country after a long Ottoman Turkish rule, it’s a fascinating snapshot of the Holy Land beginning its transition to the State of Israel and the other claimants of the land. I plan to reproduce some of the more interesting parts of the book on a sporadic basis.

This post takes a look at the tithe, a subject of long-running interest on this blog. It’s interesting that the tithe, originally a Hebrew institution, was taken over so readily by the Muslims; such will come as a shock to many Christians, who regard the tithe as a Christian institution. It’s also interesting how the British administration became involved so quickly in the collection of taxes for Muslim religious endowments.

Moslem religious endowments (waqfs), that is, property appropriated or dedicated (by a document called a waqfiah) to charitable uses and the service of God… the rest