Islamic Philanthropy as a “Discursive Tradition”

Abstract

By examining philanthropy towards Zaytuna College, the first Muslim liberal arts college in the U.S. and ISNA, and contextualizing it in the discourses of giving among American Muslims, this paper seeks to offer a theoretical framework for contextualizing Islamic philanthropy during ‘crisis'. I argue that philanthropy in this context should be seen as a gradually evolving ‘discursive tradition,' and not an unchanging one. Given the discourse of Islam in America being one framed in the rubric of ‘crisis,' and the attempts by American Muslim organizations to garner philanthropic support using this framework; it is important to understand how certain crisis situations impacted discourses of philanthropy towards this sector. This paper attempts a Foucaldian analysis of how American Muslims negotiate this discursive tension in the realm of giving. I build on the work of various scholars and offer a framework that treats philanthropy towards Islamic schools, cultural and educational institutions as a ‘discursive tradition' to understand how the dynamics of philanthropy are changing in this sector. I propose that a discursive approach could also offer us new insights into how philanthropy is being transformed, under certain institutional constraints and relations of power.