Entangled Universals of Transnational Islamic Charity

Introduction

This project examines transnational Islamic charity as a global force. The goals of Islamic charity shifted in the long twentieth century, beyond a community-scale oriented towards rewards in the afterlife and construction of religious infrastructure for Muslims.

Evolution of Islamic Charity

Islamic charitable networks have invested in public works for all humans: state-of-the-art hospitals, multistorey housing complexes, and schools for modern education. Transnational Islamic charity today claims 'humanity' as its constituency. As a universalist category, humanity is no longer the monopoly of Western humanitarianism.

Project Objectives

The project’s central objective is to study how Islamic charitable networks, in seeking to address global needs, position themselves as universalist projects, entangled with Western humanitarianism and neoliberal welfare regimes. Theorizing the unstable hierarchies of humanity embedded in transnational Islamic charitable work, it will lend new insights into its moral limits and potential – by addressing three questions:

1. How do Islamic charitable networks rearticulate the category of humanity to address diverse constituencies?
2. How do Islamic charities define and contribute to the public good within globalized neoliberal welfare regimes?
3. How do recipients of aid demonstrate their humanity to meet shifting criteria of worthiness?

Recognition and Challenges

Though considered security threats by states, Islamic charities are increasingly recognized by multilateral institutions as important sources of welfare. In a time of multiple crises characterized by climate upheavals, religious polarization, economic instability, and social deprivation, it is vital to understand transnational Islamic charity as a force for addressing universal needs.

Analytical Approach

The project develops a novel analytical approach by centering two countries in the global south outside of the ‘traditional’ heartland of the Islamic world, India and Tanzania, to study charitable networks across the Indian Ocean and beyond.