This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
The General Authority for Awqaf (GAA) is the Saudi Arabian government body responsible for regulating, developing and licensing waqf endowments nationwide, established specifically to grow the country's waqf sector as part of Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia's wider national reform program. That origin ties GAA's mandate directly to a modern economic and social reform agenda rather than to a purely religious administrative tradition inherited unchanged from an earlier era.
GAA runs development portfolios across seven distinct areas: pilgrim services, mosques, environment and water, housing, education, health and vulnerable populations, a breadth that places waqf investment at the centre of several different national priorities at once rather than confining it to religious infrastructure alone. It also licenses endowment investment funds, a distinct regulatory function that lets private capital participate in Saudi Arabia's waqf sector under GAA oversight.
No single individual founder is recorded; GAA exists as a government body created specifically to regulate, develop and license waqf endowments nationwide, its authority and mandate flowing from the Vision 2030 program rather than from a founding figure's own decision to establish it.