Book Review: Charity in Islamic Societies

Abstract

This book is a breathtaking and fascinating history of charity in the Islamic world from its creation to the present day. Islamic practices of charity have long been acknowledged as religious practices and have been studied as such by Western scholars. Amy Singer’s study goes beyond the religious texts and prescriptions for pious behavior and carries the study of charity into the realm of social organization and state building. Her book is about the divergent practices and forms (zakat or obligatory alms in form of a tax, sadaqa or voluntary acts of charity, and waqf or endowments and foundations) of charity in the history of Islamic societies around the Mediterranean. As such, it presents the first comprehensive study about charity in Islamic society. However, Singer offers much more than just a history of charity in Islamic societies. Her book could provide a starting point for future comparative research across cultural, religious, and geographical borders.

The most striking aspect of this book concerns the obvious parallels in the history of charity in the Islamic world with the history of charity in the Jewish and in the Christian world. Such parallels have long been noted by scholars such as Gabriel Baer (2005). The wakf, in particular, provides an example for the organization of charity that seems to be universal in human life across cultures and religions. Wakfs have been popular instruments in the provision of charity since the 10th century. In their essence, wakfs were endowments or foundations that produced income designated in perpetuity to support certain beneficiaries or groups of beneficiaries. Similar to European and American foundations, they were irrevocable and unalterable. Wakfs provided the necessary material resources for many Islamic concerns including religious, social, cultural, and economic needs. However, wakfs also served sociopolitical ends and were thus similar to foundations and endowments across Europe and North America.

Beneficiaries of wakfs were mosques, colleges, schools, hospitals, and individual citizens. Created by wealthy men and women, wakfs shaped the urban spaces and public infrastructure. Reading about wakfs in the Islamic world reminds the reader of the local foundations and endowments active in any European or American city during the 19th century, which left indistinguishable marks on the cityscapes and the public memory of urban societies (Adam, 2009; Ostrower, 1995). Even the motives for charitable engagement were similar for Moslems, Jews, and Christians. When Singer lists a catalogue of motives, including the desire for personal prominence, imperial legitimization, urban and rural development, promotion of community, and the preservation of social hierarchies, the reader is very much reminded of the explanations for charitable and philanthropic actions within European and North American societies (Ziegler, 2008). Even the use of wakfs for the preservation of families shares a common theme with family foundations in the continental European context. According to Singer, Moslems employed wakfs to prevent the subdivision of property among family members by creating a foundation in which family members were assigned paid positions.

When Singer investigates the giving of women within the Islamic world, the reader again finds many parallels to what we know about the involvement of women in philanthropy in the United States and Europe. Voluntary giving was equally important, as Singer asserts, for both men and women. However, Moslem women had a great advantage over their Christian contemporaries since according to Muslim law women had equal rights to property and wealth. As in the Christian world, the involvement of upper-class women in charity served to help women claim positions in Moslem public and social life and allowed them to occupy positions of power and dominance (McCarthy, 1990, 2003a, 2003b).

As benevolent associations became important actors in the field of charity in 19th-century European and American societies, so too did charitable associations emerge in Islamic societies. Singer embraces the concept of a “mixed economy of welfare” but suggests that in contrast to European states, the Ottoman Empire could certainly not be described as a “welfare state,” but as a “welfare society.” This notion of a welfare society offers a new means by which to analyze and understand charity in modern societies across continents and might offer a new paradigm for comparative studies. Singer suggests that welfare societies are made up of welfare networks. “People belonged to and tried to tap into overlapping networks formed by families, neighborhoods, villages, professional groups, sufi tariqas [Muslim mystical orders], households, and people of similar geographic origin or confession.” According to Singer,

within each network assistance was more or less formalized, routinized, or institutionalized, ranging from passing handouts in the street to familiar holiday celebrations to endowments that offered food or tax assistance. The welfare ethos and the responsibility for providing relief were rooted in the society at large and it was the entire society, including the sultan, which participated in providing social services and not the state, alone or even primarily. (p. 183)

This book is more than just a study of Islamic charity. It is a study that causes us to rethink many assumptions about the uniqueness of charity in European and American societies and by extension, many presumptions about the traditions of charity in Judeo-Christian thought. Although Alexis de Tocqueville’s view that American society developed a unique and pioneering role in the development of civil society has been severely undermined by historical studies, Amy Singer’s book adds more pressure on American historians of philanthropy to shed traditional notions of American (philanthropic) exceptionalism (McCarthy, 2009).

Historical research about charity produces significant challenges for scholars. It starts with simple issues such as language and terminology. Susannah Morris reminds us that people in the 19th century considered forms of investment as philanthropic whereas the 20th-century observer would relegate this concept to the world of profit and business (Morris, 2001, 2004). The problems Amy Singer addresses are much broader. As she points out in her introduction, there is no definitive solution to the problem of discussing charity in Islamic societies using the English language. Nevertheless, the development of a language and terminology that can be used in more than one political, social, religious, and geographical context is essential for comparative research. Such a common language will also help reveal the shared properties of charity in different cultures. All too often, different terms and labels for certain phenomena in different settings can obscure the similar nature of these phenomena.

Amy Singer’s work provokes a round of new questions with regard to the interconnected and cross-cultural influences in the realm of charity and philanthropy between Christian, Jewish, and Islamic cultures since the Middle Ages. Singer’s book focuses mostly on charity (provision of social welfare) as opposed to the other aspects of social organization such as support for education and art. And while she refers repeatedly to the support for schools, Singer does not dwell on the financial support, for instance, for institutions of higher learning. The institution of the madrasa (college) and its influence on medieval European universities and their support for students might be a point worth future consideration (Geelhaar, 2007; Makdisi, 1981).

Many fundamental questions arise from Amy Singer’s inspiring book. And these are no small questions. Does the development of charitable traditions in the Islamic and Judeo-Christian world simply reflect a social necessity for social assistance of the disadvantaged by the more affluent and are therefore built into human society? In this case, one might conceive of these developments as parallel and separate. Or did all three seemingly separate traditions interact through intercultural transfer in the creation of three interconnected systems of charity? If that is the case, a transcultural and transreligious history of charity is required. I recommend this book highly to anyone interested to learn about charity in the Islamic world and about the similarities between giving in Islamic and Christian traditions.

Footnotes

Bio

Thomas Adam is professor at the University of Texas at Arlington. He teaches German and modern transatlantic history. His most recent publications include Buying Respectability: Philanthropy and Urban Society in a Transnational Perspective, 1840s to 1930s (Indiana University Press, 2009). He is currently working on a comparative study of funding for undergraduate education at German and American universities from 1800 to 1945.

References

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