A waqf also spelled wakf (Arabic: وقف‎, pronounced [ˈwɑqf]; plural Arabic: أوقاف‎, awqāf; Turkish: vakıf, Urdu: وقف). It is under the context of 'sadaqah', a inalienable religious endowment in Islamic law, typically denoting a building or plot of land or even cash for Muslim religious or charitable purposes. The donated assets are held by a charitable trust. The grant is known as mushrut-ul-khidmat, while a person making such dedication is known as wakif.

The term waqf literally means "confinement and prohibition" or causing a thing to stop or standstill. The legal meaning of Waqf according to Imam Abu Hanifa, is the detention of specific thing in the ownership of waqif and the devoting of its profit or products "in charity of poors or other good objects".

Imam Abu Yusuf and Imam Muhammad Says: Waqf signifies the extinction of the waqif's ownership in the thing dedicated and detention of all the thing in the implied ownership of God, in such a manner that its profits may revert to or be applied "for the benefit of Mankind".