Abstract Waqf , in general, and family waqf specifically, came under heavy criticism throughout the Muslim world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. By the mid-20th century, family waqf had been abolished or severely restricted in most Muslim states. Most of the driving forces for this development have been ascribed to the colonial and imperial projects of economic liberalism and the general push for modernisation. This article, however, presents examples of pre-modern criticism and abolition of family waqf decreed by Yemeni Zaydī imamic rulers, thus highlighting a pre-modern, internal Muslim criticism of the family waqf that has been scarcely studied to date, and framed mainly as a way to secure justice based on the Quranic inheritance shares.