'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎264r] (530/862)

THE CONSTITUTION 403
origin of many of the endowments calls for state supervision similar
to that exercised formerly by the Chancery Court in England.
The Department of Waqf, which is concerned only with Moslem
religious, educational, and charitable endowments, is subsidiary to
the Ministry of Justice. It includes the administration of the pro
perties from which the revenues of the Waqf are derived. The Otto
man regime left a heavy burden on the new administration in this
department. Repairs and rebuilding had been greatly neglected so
that many buildings for which the department was responsible were
in ruins, and corruption and peculation were widespread among de
partmental officials. During the three years in which the British
administered the Department its revenue increased from 3 million
to 17 million rupees Indian silver coin also widely used in the Persian Gulf. , but after two years it passed into the hands of an
officer belonging to the community mainly concerned, the first of the
government departments to pass out of British control. Until 1929
there was a Ministry of Waqf, but then it was reduced to the status
of a department under a Director-General, the British Inspector-
General who had remained as adviser being withdrawn. The de
partment is virtually independent of outside control, because, in view
of its concern solely with religious and related matters, the Govern
ment prefers not to interfere in its management.
The department maintains a number of elementary schools of its
own and aids others. It also provides teaching of secular subjects as
well as of theology in the mosques, and it grants scholarships to
enable selected students to attend European and American univer
sities. Its attempt to establish a theological college of university
standard in Baghdad was a failure.
Education
In Iraq, as in other Arab countries, there is a fairly pressing demand
for schooling if not for education, and it is in the provision of schools
that the Iraqi State has made its most notable and useful advances.
The general situation is shown by the fact that in 1940-1941 modern
primary education was provided for 114,000 children, 3.3 per cent,
of a total population of over 3,500,000, whereas in 1920 less than
o-6 per cent, of the population were receiving primary education, and
the number of government primary schools in this period has been
increased ninefold from 85 to 755. The total staff of the government
elementary and primary schools in 1940 numbered 3,525, an
average of about 1 teacher to 25 pupils.
Primary education is now free and compulsory for both boys and