Beyond compassion: Islamic voluntarism in Egypt

Abstract

Resala, Egypt's largest volunteer‐driven charity organization, engages in a range of activities, from distributing food in slums to visiting orphanages. Although its volunteers may appear to participate in a global moral economy of compassion, many of them articulate an Islamic voluntarism that contrasts with what they see as a Christian approach to suffering and with the more secular motivations of so much civic and humanitarian work today. Focusing on three Resala volunteers, I look at how Islam is imagined and mobilized to compel, make sense of, and justify giving in particular contexts and in practice. The volunteers’ stories reveal the multilayeredness of their ethics and trouble the link between compassion and voluntarism. By foregrounding religious duty, the volunteers offer insight into a nonliberal, nonhumanist ethics of voluntarism and question the centrality of compassion as a mobilizing force in the world and as an explanatory force in anthropology.

A civilized revolution: Aesthetics and political action in Egypt

“…The week after Mubarak's resignation, an eager rider in her early 20s wearing a T‐shirt, newly fashionable tight jeans, and sneakers boarded one of the women‐only cars and gave a speech to the riders about proper behavior. She was part of the volunteer youth corps of Resala, “Egypt's largest volunteer‐driven charity organization” with Islamic leanings (Mittermaier , 518). She wore an official‐looking badge around her neck issued by the NGO.…”

Giving in God’s name: investing in the ethical self in the case of the kermes

“…Her ethnography, conducted among Lebanese Shi'a women in Southern Lebanon, introduces how these women sacrifice their time to help the poor and how these public forms of social service are seen as a commitment to God (Deeb 2006). Amira Mittermaier has written about volunteering among Muslim youth, mostly in the context of the Resala Movement (Mittermaier 2014). In her work she draws a line between giving in the 'secular humanist ethic' and 'giving as a duty to God'.…”

“…In her work she draws a line between giving in the 'secular humanist ethic' and 'giving as a duty to God'. Her argument is that giving in the humanist ethic creates a hierarchy between the giver and the receiver, bestowing the giver with the virtue of giving; in the Islamic tradition, however, because giving is essentially a duty towards God it does not bestow a position to the giver that is above the receiver, and more so indicates a relationship of obedience between the giver and God (Mittermaier 2014). By indicating the distinction of giving between two traditions, Mittermaier opens the door to discussing the dynamics of giving in a tradition other than that of secular ethical traditions.…”

Humanitarian affect: Islam, aid and emotional impulse in northern Pakistan

“…1 In this endeavour, research on the role of religious organizations, motivations and practices has been particularly productive and shed light on religion as a frontier of international humanitarianism in which histories of colonialism and exclusion intersect with morality and affect (e.g. Barnett 2011;Benthall 2015Benthall , 2016Benthall , 2019Bolotta, Fountain, and Feener Forthcoming;Bornstein 2012;Mittermaier 2014Mittermaier , 2019Nunan 2016;Redfield and Bornstein 2010;Watanabe 2019). These studies have been important in the larger project of decentring humanitarianism and have led to the inclusion of people and processes that had hitherto escaped the scope of research on international organizations (Brković 2015(Brković , 2017.…”

“…2 In the course of my fieldwork and the analysis of historical sources, affect was a central factor through which my interlocutorspast and presentexplained their urge to 'do good' and to eventually become involved in formally organized humanitarian work. In this regard, the overarching concept of 'compassion', often perceived as central to global 'humanitarian reason' (Fassin 2012), was of relatively little relevance (Mittermaier 2014). Instead, they referred to other urgesto take action, to transform, to help and to achievethat are neither part of the vocabulary of international humanitarianism nor of Islamic charity and almsgiving.…”