"تقارير إدارة أقسام ومناطق الأراضي المحتلة في بلاد الرافدين لسنة ١٩١٨. المجلد I" [ظ‎‎٤‎٢] (٤٧٠/٨٩)

76
The income of the Shi £ ah Waqfs of Najaf and Kufah arises from the Dafaniyah
or burial tax on bodies over three years old brought for burial in the Wadi al Salam
or in the shrine!
The fees are as follows :—
For ordinary burial outside the town, Rs. 6/4/- a corpse.
This tax is extremely lucrative, and has produced in the year under review
the sum of Rs. 48,000/-, and this though the blockade intervened and the restrictions
on the corpse traffic were considerable. Next year the income from this source
should be at least Rs. 1,20,000/-.
As has been explained elsewhere a quarantine tax of Rs. 4/- per corpse is
levied on all corpses, new or old, brought in for burial. This produces a sum even
greater than the Dafaniyah. Collection is carried out by the Auqaf agency; half
the salary of the Auqaf administrative establishmnet is, therefore, borne from general
revenue, into which the quarantine tax is credited.
The income of the Darwaish Estate in the Hindiyah district is dedicated to
the Shrine of ‘Ali, and a little house property in Najaf and Kufah and a mill are
also owned by the Auqaf. The income accruing from this is, however, only between
* 3,000 and 4,000 rupees a year.
The expenditure of the Auqaf consists in the salaries of the Auqaf administrative
establishment, consisting of a Mamur, clerk, burial inspectors and qolchis. This is
750/- per mensem, of which half is borne from general revenues. The salaries of
the mosque and shrine officials at Najaf and Kufah, 768/12/- per mensem; oil for
lighting the shrines, 240/- per mensem; the upkeep of the kanat or underground
water channel which was built as a charitable endowment for the benefit of the
city—this costs 240-/ per mensem, of which 125/- per mensem is supplied by the
gardeners at the foot of the cliff, who derive considerable benefit from it.
Even with these expenses and with a very low estimate for the receipts of the
Dafaniyah tax there is a surplus of receipts over expenditure of over Rs.'4,000/-
per mensem.
With this large accumulating surplus it has been possible to undertake what
is the primary duty of the Auqaf, the repair and upkeep of the shrines and mosques
themselves. The number of these in Kufah and Najaf is very large. Rs. 9,300/-
has been sanctioned for these repairs, which include the repair of the great Kufah
mosque, urgent sanitary work and minor repairs in the shrine and repairs to the
Shrine of Zain al ‘Abdin and the tomb of Hud and Salih. The two latter have been
satisfactorily completed, while work on the two first should be finished shortly.
There is no doubt that the waqfs of Najaf and Kufah are in a very flourishing
state, and that a very bright future, from the financial standpoint, lies before them.
A great deal of the present successful administration is due to the work of the Mamur,
Saiyid Mahdi, who has shown himself exceedingly capable and hardworking, and
who, incidentally, underwent a far from pleasant experience during the blockade
when he succeeded in saving some Rs. 11,000/- of Auqaf funds from the hands of
the insurgents.
There are no Sunni Waqfs in the Division, though there are Sunni mosques
at Kufah and Umm al Ba‘rur. The object of these institutions was however
propaganda by the Turks, and the salaries of the officials are borne by Government’
(d) Miscellaneous Revenues : Kodak.—The Division is exceptionally rich in
sheep and cattle, and the revenue from this source in the year under review amounted
to over Rs 80,000/-. The system was adopted of making certain shaikhs responsible
tor the collection and the result was successful. Next year the usual system of
special mamurs will be employed if the SlnTbah staff are not able to manage.
Quarantine.—This is an extremely lucrative tax, and incidentally a thoroughly
justifiable one, of 4/- on all corpses brought from outside for burial at m-jo-F ff
Rs.
Tarmah
Hu j rah
Rawaq
Sahn
25/-/-
62/8/-
31/4/-
750/-/-