Islamic law gave patrons a tool that European donors of the same era largely lacked: an endowment that could not later be dissolved, redirected or seized by an heir, a rival or the state. A waqf works by permanently separating ownership of a property from the right to use its income; once a founder constitutes the endowment through a waqfiyya, naming the property, the beneficiaries and the purpose, the property itself becomes legally frozen, and only the revenue it generates may be spent, forever, on exactly what the charter specifies. That structure is why Hurrem Sultan's 1557 charter for her Jerusalem complex could survive the fall of the Ottoman Empire, changes of sovereignty over Jerusalem itself, and nearly five centuries of political upheaval while still funding the same soup kitchen it named at the outset.
Ottoman administration ran this system on its official Hanafi legal framework, and waqf deeds like Hurrem Sultan's followed a recognizable form: a formal preamble invoking the endower's authority, a precise description of the endowed properties, and binding instructions for their management, often specifying salaried staff down to the cook. That level of legal specificity, designed centuries ago to withstand exactly the kind of institutional collapse the region has since seen more than once, is the reason a single sixteenth century document can still be cited today as the kitchen's operating authority.