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This Chapter republishes a review of Amelia Fauzia’s book Faith and the State: Islamic philanthropy in Indonesia, originally published in the Asian Journal of Social Science in 2014. Most research published in English since 2000 on Islamic philanthropy and humanitarianism has concentrated on the Middle East, South and Central Asia, and Europe and the USA. Fauzia’s impressive monograph on Indonesia bears comparison with any of this research. She explores how zakat (the Islamic tithe) and sadaqa (optional charity) have been implemented in various ways in Indonesia. Her guiding theme is the tension between the private or personal imperatives of the Islamic revelation and public conduct where persuasion or coercion can be effective, including that exerted by the modern state. She gives special attention to the “modernist” Muhammadiyah, founded in 1912. The Chapter proposes an angle for historical research: to what extent did Christian institutions introduced by colonial powers affect the development of Islamic charities in Indonesia and elsewhere?

This chapter presents some issues of legislating zakat that have emerged in the aftermath of the Soeharto government in 1998. The enactment of Zakat Administration Law 38/1999 was as a result of contributions from both the MORA and the Forum Zakat (FOZ), although the former actually sought to dominate the enactment process. The promulgation of Law 38/1999 on the Management of Zakat was clear evidence that the institutionalization of zakat had reached the point where the permeation of Islamic doctrines in the structure of the secular state had begun to deepen considerably and perhaps even irreversibly. Yet the process of drafting that law, as this chapter shows, was not easy.

The Introduction summarizes the book’s content under the following headings. Since all the Chapters have been previously published elsewhere, it also adds some complementary material to bring the book up to date on some important topics: Part One: Chapters 1 to 9: Islamic charities Summary of the Chapters Some recurrent themes Faith Based Organizations and “cultural sensitivity” Islamic Relief Worldwide The West Bank zakat committees Banking problems Towards a more complete description Pakistan Turkey Domestic Islamic charity in the United Kingdom A zakat movement? Towards a more comparative approach Part Two: Chapters 10 to 17: Islamic humanism

This chapter outlines the historical background of the growth of Islamic charities over the last few decades, and of Faith Based Organizations in general. It also discusses the humanitarian consequences of the clampdown on Islamic charities post 9/11, and questions the academic standard of some counter-terrorist studies that have authorized this clampdown. It calls for sympathetic steps to ease the way for those Islamic charities that accept the principles of regulation and monitoring. It argues that high values and ideals are better expressed by actions than by mere dialogue. Islamic Relief Worldwide showed what can be done when it was appointed to represent all the major British relief agencies on television to launch a joint appeal for the Kashmir earthquake in 2005. Failure to recognize the potential of Islamic charities means losing a significant opportunity to defuse the purported “clash of civilizations”.

This chapter was published in 2008, shortly after the decision of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank to reorganize some 90 zakat committees and bring them under central control. The chapter (originally published by the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva) set out to review competing interpretations of the nature of the West Bank committees during the “Oslo period”, after limited autonomy was ceded by Israel to the Palestinian Authority but before the split between the West Bank and Gaza which took place in 2007. Allegations in the counter-terrorist literature that the zakat committees had been simply fronts for Hamas are considered here and found to be unpersuasive, short of hard evidence and especially in the light of the confidence that – according to reputable opinion surveys – they earned from the Palestinian public. A more benign interpretation is offered in this chapter – that these zakat committees were a result of the “Islamic resurgence” and were typically grass-roots, community based organizations that were beginning to tap into the international aid system, in response to urgent humanitarian needs and the pressures inflicted by the Israeli Occupation.

This chapter, originally published in a law journal (the UCLA Journal of Near Eastern and Islamic Law), follows up the issue of the Palestinian zakat committees which was discussed in Chapter 5. It describes a civil action launched in the US courts by the family of David Boim, a boy of seventeen, who was killed by Palestinians in a drive-by shooting in the West Bank in 1996. The family, being unable to sue either two alleged murderers or Hamas (as the presumed instigator of the attacks) sued the Holy Land Foundation on the grounds that it had remitted funds to zakat committees, held to be façades for Hamas. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit found in favour of the Boims, by a majority. The majority decision was written by Judge Richard Posner. The controversial principles in US law of “material support for terrorism” and “fungibility” (i.e. transferability) of assets are discussed here. It is argued that the Court did not give enough attention to making clear its commitment to fairness, while the minority opinion was unimpeachable.

This Chapter describes the case of Tariq Ramadan, the Swiss-born academic and commentator on Islamic matters, who was refused a non-immigrant visa in 2005 to enter the USA in order to accept a professorship in peace studies. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) took up his case. Though it is probable that the real reason for his exclusion was opposition to Ramadan’s political opinions, the reason given was that between 1998 and July 2002 he had made donations totalling the equivalent of US$940 to a charity registered in Switzerland (the Association de Secours aux Palestiniens). In August 2003 this charity was designated by the USA as a terrorist fundraising entity, on account of its alleged links to Hamas-linked Palestinian charities (including zakat committees). Eventually, after two court hearings, the State Department decided in January 2010, in a document signed by Secretary Clinton, to lift the ban against Ramadan’s entering the USA. This Chapter recounts the progress of the case, and reproduces a letter sent by Benthall to Secretary Clinton in October 2009 in support of the ACLU’s representation of Ramadan.

Chapter nine describes Qutb’s ideas about the rich and the poor, and how wealth should be created and consumed. Qutb’s views of social class reflect a Sa’idi populism that constitutes a pre-modern approach to reducing the gap between rich and poor that does not exacerbate it, but does not abolish it, either. Islam tends toward moderation, rejecting both extreme wealth and extreme poverty. The chapter reviews Qutb’s ideas about legitimate economic occupations and contrasts Islamic charity with western welfare systems. Paying zakat, or obligatory tithes, and sadaqa, or voluntary tithes, are divine duties for Muslims. They are also a major means of income redistribution. Zakat is constructive; charging interest, or usury, riba, is harmful. Qutb argues that there are two types of riba and Islam prohibits both. Qutb’s views about Islamic principles of property – individual stewardship and divine ownership – are evocative of a pre-capitalist society. Although Qutb’s Islamic movement is not anti-capitalist per se, it places so many restrictions on capitalism that it is practically null and void.

This chapter traces the rapid emergence of a variety of humanitarian actors in the famine who had not previously been recognized as part of the “humanitarian community” in Somalia. Many of these were from Turkey or the Middle East, and drew on resources from Turkey, the Gulf states or Islamic charity networks, not western donors. Labelled “non-traditional” or “emerging” humanitarian actors, they were actually neither—many had long been engaged in humanitarian action or in Somalia, but doing other things. Given that the famine hit world news during the holy month of Ramadan, Islamic charities such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation raised very large sums as zakat (alms), often matched by government contributions, and these agencies became major actors in the response, albeit in their own way, and utilizing their own coordination mechanisms.