In June 2018, one of the editors of this book was invited by the chair of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) Canada to visit the ISNA Canada headquarters with its mosque and community center in Mississauga in the Greater Toronto Area. On the tour through the center, the chair pointed in passing at a large box in a hallway, which community members use to give charity. The box had a sign attached that quoted Surah Al-Baqarah, Verse 274 from the Qurâan : âThose who spend their wealth [in Allahâs way] by night and by day, secretly and publiclyâthey will have their reward with their Lord. And no fear will there be concerning them, nor will they grieve.â
Community members who want to âspend their wealthâ had three slots to choose from; they were labeled sadaqa , zakat , and donation.
This box with its three slots for giving charity seemed to encapsulate a key tenet of this book, which we had just started working on at the time: the relationship between Islamic theological-ethical (here: sadaqa and zakat ) and supposedly âWestern,â liberal-democratic practices (here: donations). It seemed there was no contradiction between these three concepts of giving money to a good cause among the ISNA community members who would simply choose between the three options, and the money would be forwarded accordingly.
Not long after this mosque visit, we learned we were in some ways wrong with this assumption; it was more complicated than we first thought. The ISNA Canada chair mentioned that the sign on this box was modified after confusion had been raised by some community members about the difference between sadaqa and donations, and if, and in what way, both forms of charity differed. While there has been an unanimous understanding of the meaning and purpose of the Islamically mandatory zakat (as this is specified in the Quâran), sadaqa is a less clearly defined Islamic concept related to charity or good deeds more broadly (see Keskin and Yucelâs chapter in this volume). According to the executive director of ISNA Canada, community members have also had slightly different, in parts culturally shaped, understandings of what kind of charities sadaqa may encompass. In practice, however, ISNA Canada used the money given as sadaqa and donations for the same non-zakat-specific purposes, for example, to cover the expenses of various community support activities. Hence, having two separate slots at the box for sadaqa and for donations was considered to be unintentionally misleading, and consequently the two were merged. Since then there have been only two slots, one for zakat and the other one labeled sadaqa /donation . The executive director of ISNA Canada explained that this community-internal debate demonstrated to him once again how Muslim communities, and more specifically ISNA Canada, as an Islamic organization, constantly and pragmatically navigate their religious belief and actions in a non-Muslim-majority society like Canada, âmarryingâ the religiously grounded with civic-secular practices in a liberal-democratic context.
This volume is not about donations and monetary manifestations of sadaqa , but we consider this episode from Mississauga an illustrative opening to this book as it explores a related practice of charity and acts of benevolence that may similarly blur the boundaries between Islamic ethical conduct and liberal-democratic norms and practice: Muslim volunteering in a non-Islamic societal context.
In public debates, policy statements and (predominately Western) scholarship volunteering is commonly framed as a secular practice, even when performed within a religious or faith-based organizational contextâa practice strongly aligned with (neo-)liberal and democratic principles of active citizenship and civil society. This volume critiques this narrow secular lens on volunteering. Not only does such a conceptualization deny that, historically, voluntary community service and charity used to be primarily a religiously grounded practice, it also pays little attention to the enormous religious diversification of community structures and civil societies in post-secular Western countries over the past few decades.
While religiosity usually does not feature in these contemporary public and political debates around volunteerism, volunteering research has consistently found a positive association between religiosity (usually focusing on Christian faiths) and volunteering (Wilson and Musick 1997; Wang and Handy 2014; von Essen et al. 2015). Scholars have arguedâand empirical evidence confirms their claimsâthat religiosity can have both a direct and an indirect positive effect on peopleâs propensity to volunteering.
First, places of worship and religious community life often provide a civically mobilizing environment where people gain certain skills, networks, and motivations, which encourage or facilitate their civic engagement. âReligious organizations tell people of opportunities to serve, both within and beyond the congregation itself, and provide personal contacts, committees, phone numbers, meeting spaces, transportation, or whatever it may take to help turn good intentions into actionâ (Wuthnow 1994: 253). Second, and linked to this indirect effect of religiosity, most faith systems advocate, in one way or another, âvalues of altruism and caring for othersâ (von Essen et al. 2015: 1). This ethical dimension may be a central motivational driver for many religious people to engage in acts of benevolence and doing good deedsâand volunteering could be one way of performing this religiously grounded duty or principle (Peucker 2018). Wilson and Musick (1997: 697), who have carried out extensive scholarship on volunteering, refer to this motivational factor in their theoretical framework on volunteerism as a âculture of benevolence ,â emphasizing that religiosity can be a key source of this kind of âcultural capital â (see Peuckerâs chapter). The Islamic faith is no exception here, as several chapters in this volume firmly demonstrate.
Islam, Ethics, and Citizenship
The ethical dynamics of being a âgood Muslimâ have been subject of extensive research. The specifics of how an Islamic ethos encourages or urges Muslims to do good deeds in their everyday lives have been explored by scholars who have contributed extensively to studies concerning the ethical turn in Islam. One of the first anthropologists to assert the ethical in religion is Talal Asad (1993), who argued, inspired by Foucaultâs writings, that physical discipline has a significant role in ethical self-making. This line of thinking has been followed by anthropologists such as Saba Mahmood (2005) on the politics of piety , Charles Hirschkind (2006) on the ethics of listening, Hussain Agrama (2010) on the ethics of fatwa , and Samuli Schielke (2010) on the tensions of pursuing an ethical life.
The common point in these writings is the focus on the individual and the individualâs focus on their own ethical self-making. There is little engagement with how ethical becoming is relationally intertwined with the individualâs social interactions and commitments. In this context, little systematic research has been undertaken into the gateways, goals, and experiences of Muslim volunteers and what community services they seek to contribute to. This volume seeks to address some of these gaps and to contribute to a debate, in academia and beyond, on the meaning of religious norms and specifically Islamic piety and ethos for the lived everyday experience of Muslim volunteers in culturally, ethnically, and religiously diverse, post-secular societies. This resonates with Bryan S. Turnerâs (2013: 15) call for greater scholarly at...