Social Policy in the Islamic World

Ali Akbar Tajmazinani

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9783030577520
• eBook ISBN:
  9783030577537
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Public Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book examines social policy in Muslim countries across the world and the status and role of Islamic teachings in such policies. It fills a gap in the literature by reviewing and comparing the experience of several Muslim countries from across the world. The existing social policy literature lacks a comprehensive appraisal of the social policy scene in Muslim societies, especially from a comparative perspective. This book will be of interest to a wide audience in the academic and policy forums related to and interested in Muslim societies and communities.

© The Author(s) 2021

A. A. Tajmazinani (ed.)Social Policy in the Islamic WorldInternational Series on Public Policy https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57753-7_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Ali Akbar Tajmazinani¹

(1)

Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tehran, Iran

Keywords

Islamic welfare regimeMuslim worldIslamic world

End Abstract

Social policy literature is mainly dominated by the concepts, theories, and practices developed in countries with established welfare states. This literature is strongly rooted in the historical, socio-cultural, economic, and political context of these nations. Even the literature on social policy in developing countries views their situation through the lens of mainstream theories and conceptual frameworks.

With a population of about two billion people, Muslims make up a majority of the population in nearly 40 countries around the world from Morocco and Algeria through Iran and Azerbaijan to Malaysia and Indonesia and still constitute a considerable part of other mixed societies. One of the most notable elements of Islamic social teachings relates to social welfare concepts, principles, as well as practices and solutions. However, it is a tall order to portray a single picture of social policy in Muslim societies given the vast diversity of historical, political, and economic circumstances they have experienced as well as various cultural characteristics they possess. Despite these diversities, they have to respond to more or less similar issues and problems with regard to education, employment, health, housing, family and gender, inequality, and poverty as well as social security. Hence, there are two important questions: how do they deal with these issues and what is the status and role of Islamic teachings in such social policies.

The present book is intended to fill this gap in the literature by reviewing and comparing the experience of several Muslim countries from across the world. Existing social policy literature lacks a comprehensive appraisal of the social policy scene in Muslim societies, especially from a comparative perspective. Therefore, this book could be of interest to a wide audience in the academic and policy forums related to and interested in Muslim societies and communities.

1 The ‘Islamic World’?

Is there such a ‘unified entity’ which could be labeled as the ‘Islamic world‘ or the ‘Muslim World’? In his seminal book titled ‘The Islamic World’, Andrew Rippin (2008) adopts a multi-perspective approach (geo-political, religious, intellectual, cultural, and social) to examine this idea. His overall conclusion is that “The Islamic world is a dynamic notion, shifting through time, finding its manifestation adjusting to the pressures of the moment. Of course, there are symbolic touchstones, especially in the dimensions of human existence we call “religious,” but to no extent do those symbols serve to dictate absolutely and uniformly every aspect of life in every circumstance” (p. 5).

Cemil Aydin (2017) rejects essentialization of the Muslim world and suggests that the idea of a unified Muslim world emerged in the late nineteenth century, when European empires ruled the majority of Muslim societies, as the antithesis of Western Christian civilization. He points to the role of Muslim intellectuals in illustrating and essentializing an idealized pan-Islamic society that refused claims of Muslims’ racial and civilizational inferiority.

Various discourses about such concepts as the ‘Islamic World’ or the ‘Muslim World’ exist both within and outside academia. The Islamist discourse may use this concept to portray a unified Ummah or a glorious civilization in the past and call for a return to it or to construct a new Islamic civilization based on its legacy. Muhammad Abduh, Ali Shariati, and Muhammad Iqbal are among Muslim thinkers who generally fall in this category, although with notable difference among them. As a recent example, Masudul Alam Choudhury has called in his book ‘Reforming the Muslim World’ for the reconstruction of a future Muslim world. The range of his proposed reformation includes economic, social, political, and socio-scientific inquiries for realizing the common good of the Ummah, the world nation of Islam, and of the Ummah in relation to the global order (Choudhury 2010).

The anti-Islamist discourse may appeal to the same concept in order to illustrate a unified enemy for the non-Muslim world, especially ‘The West’, which threatens the modern civilization and therefore fuel the Islamophobia movements and attitudes. There is also a policy-oriented discourse like the one developed by Cooper and Yue (2008) which portrays the Muslim world as a real or potential threat for the west and calls for non-military responses to this treat. Analyzing challenges of the Muslim world like clashes over natural resources like gas and oil, population increase and youth bulge, rapid urbanization and its problems, illiteracy and poor education as well as fundamentalist thoughts and movements, they recommend adoption of economic and social development approaches by western countries to deal with these challenges.

The social science discourse may see some value in categorizing Muslim groups, entities, communities, and societies as a distinct sociological reality for descriptive and explanatory purposes. For example, Kamal Salhi (2014) has edited a valuable collection of chapters on ‘Music, Culture, and Identity in the Muslim World: Performance, politics, and piety’. According to him, the criss-crossing axes of the global, the local and the transnational impel them to consolidate collective identities, confirm their historical legacies and look forward to the future, including through making, listening to and being emotionally sustained by music.

Therefore, the book aims to look at the influence of Islamic religious beliefs on the role and realization of the art of sound and its manifestation in the Muslim world and its diaspora. However, others (see for example Aydin 2017) may refute to do so based on the argument that these kinds of differentiations between human societies may tend to portray ordinary social and cultural differences as essential and unresolvable disparities.

While adopting a social science approach to the concept in question, the present book seeks to explore the suitability of the concept in the study of social policy issues faced by Muslim societies and communities. The main questions of this book are as follows: Is there such a deep divergence between Muslim and non-Muslim societies in terms of social policy and welfare which necessitates distinct conceptualization and theorizing? Are there multiple Muslim worlds with disparate ‘welfare systems’ and no substantial coherence or they share a level of convergence which makes them a distinct type of social welfare regime that is capable for social science inquiry? Are there—and if yes, what are—local and/or indigenous social policy and welfare initiatives as well as intellectual social policy achievements in Muslim societies?

2 Structure of the Book

The present book has been organized around two main parts. The first part deals with conceptual and comparative aspects of social policy in Muslim societies.

Chapter 2 by Ali Akbar Tajmazinani and Zahra Mahdavi Mazinani aims to elaborate various aspects of Islamic social teachings with regard to social policy and welfare in two main areas of values and principles as well as instruments and practices. Adopting a ‘social theology‘ approach, this chapter provides the reader with a conceptual framework to understand the status of Islamic teachings in the social policy atmosphere of various Muslim societies studied throughout the book. After explaining the main sources of deriving Islamic rules by Muslim scholars, the chapter illustrates a set of values and principles which underpin and guide the practice of social welfare in Islamic teachings, namely: intrinsic altruism, religious brotherhood, personal responsibility, takaful or public responsibility, state responsibility, social rights, social balance (tawazun) and equality, avoidance of tadawul, collective and public ownership, undesirability of poverty, and social justice. These principles all together constitute a holistic conceptual framework within which one could understand the general approach of the Islamic school to social policy and welfare. Based on the above-mentioned principles, this chapter briefly examines a series of practices and solutions for providing social welfare according to Islamic teachings, including inter alia: Zakat, Khums, Waqf, Sadaqah, Qard-al-Hasan, Anfal, and Nazr. These practices are mostly of a redistributive nature and include both obligatory and non-obligatory actions by the Islamic state and individual Muslims.

Chapter 3 by Rana Jawad and Rana Eseed offers a comparative perspective on the conceptual and practical linkages between social policy as a field of public practice and the subject focus of this volume which is the Muslim world. The primary focus on Islamic social welfare here is related to the importance given to social responsibility in the major world religions and the historic influence of religion on issues of social welfare action and care for the vulnerable. The chapter provides two case study illustrations: one about Muslim social welfare activism in the United Kingdom (UK) and one about Islamic social movements in Jerusalem. These serve to support the overarching argument which is that Islamic social welfare practices are not homogenous and it may be more apt to refer to “Muslim worlds” in order to recognise the diverse range of actors and organisations in different parts of the world but also who have differing interpretations of the Muslim faith.

Chapter 4 by Laura Ruiz de Elvira and Sahar Aurore Saeidnia revolves around the issue of beneficence and welfare and aims to provide insights for the comparative study of ‘doing good‘ practices (‘amal khayr) in the Islamic world. The authors suggest that since the 1990s, in the context of states’ reconfiguration, beneficence has become a powerful ethic...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• Part I. Conceptual and Comparative Aspects
• Part II. Country Case Studies
• Back Matter