Under Ottoman law corporations could not own land, but only natural persons. As stated by the original deed in Arabic and French, issued on the occasion of the land acquisition in 1848, Mount Zion Cemetery was converted into an inalienable religious waqf endowment in favour of the Injiliyyun (; i.e. Protestants) as its beneficiaries, represented by their respective spiritual head () as mutevelli (, i.e. administrator, trustee). A waqf may have beneficiaries, who take usufruct of it, but nobody may dispose of it as property.