American Imams from Cairo to California A
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE A Culture of Charity: American Imams from Cairo to California A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology by Shahab Uddin Malik December 2018 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Susan Ossman, Chairperson Dr. Christina Schwenkel Dr. Sherine Hafez Copyright by Shahab Uddin Malik 2018 The Dissertation of Shahab Uddin Malik is approved: Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This would not have been possible without the love and support of my wife, Minzah Malik, who worked a job, watched the kids, and maintained the house while I was away on research or writing this dissertation. I am forever grateful to you for giving me the time and pushing me to completion. Your good nature, strength, and positivity has been a blessing in my life. My two children, Liyana and Camila Malik, who at two and four years old ask me daily about the completion the “diss-tertation.” My mother, Ikhlas Malik, with her quiet fortitude, sacrificed so much for her boys, always believing in us. My father, Habib Malik, who first taught me the work of charity, taking me to Pakistan at 13 years of age, walking the streets of Karachi and Peshawar, never turning away a beggar. You would give five or ten rupees, I in tow, would follow with a few. I will never forget the hospitals and Afghan refugee camps where you brought food, money, and hospital supplies. Your example set the course of my education. I would like to thank my advisor Dr. Susan Ossman who pushed me to think through my project in new and creative ways. You helped me think through the problems associated with multiple sites, transnational actors, and differing modes of subjectivity in theorizing this project. You offered critique, furnished suggestions and made corrections, but gave me the room to develop and move with my own ideas. Dr. Christina Schwenkel has been instrumental in theorizing humanitarianism, introducing me to many of the works that I relied upon in this dissertation. Dr. Sherine Hafez, who taught me about iv Egypt and finally recommended that I focus on zakat. This dissertation would not be possible without their generous support. I would like to thank my colleagues, Dr. Young-hoon Oh, Danae Khorasani, Robbie Finch, Celso Jaquez, Stephen James, Bada Choi, who would spend hours thinking through anthropological concepts and their application to real world problems. You all made graduate school fun and exciting. To John Wickham and Priscille Biehlmann who helped me proofread the manuscript. I would like to thank Omar Qureshi and Jessica Lopez who opened their home to me where I would spend days at a time writing my dissertation. Thanks to you and your parents, Jameela Qureshi and Khaja Zuhurideen, as well as the late Mohammed Sharafuddin Qureshi who was exemplary in his zakat practice. A special thank you to the late Rami Zeeni who showed us the meaning of true friendship. To my in-laws, Zuhairul Ameen Saleh and Mumtaz Saleh, who helped with errands and took care of the kids when we needed it. I would also like to thank my mentors in the Shari’a Revoiced project, Dr. Kathleen Moore, Dr. Mark Massoud, and Maria Ebrahimji. Dr. Moore helped with the section on Islam in America, she is a true mentor, kind, caring, and encouraging. Thank you for opening up your home and treating me like I was one of your sons. I will never forget travelling all around Southern California with Dr. Massoud, getting interviews and learning about field research and our respective projects. v In Egypt, I would like to thank Mohammad Mekki a local who became a friend, Izaat Nega who assisted with the research, and Ibrahim Negm of Dar al-Iftah, who helped secure my affiliation and made research in Egypt possible. I would like to thank the conversations and support of interlocutors over the years, Ovamir Anjum who has gone out of his way to discuss all aspects of Islamic history and philosophy. From a mentor he has become a friend. To Khaled Abou El-Fadl, Sherman Jackson, Charles Hirschkind, Hussein Ali Agrama, Nadia Fadil and the late Saba Mahmood who took the time to sit with me and discuss my project. To my friends in California, Abdul-Rahman Abdul-Wahab, Hassan Siddiqi, Syed Mubeen Saifullah, who provided psychological and emotional support when a brother needed it. To my blood brothers, Samie, Jamal, and Ali, we had some fun growing up and may we continue to get closer as we age and have our own children. This dissertation was conducted under Institutional Review Board (IRB) protocol HS-15-171. vi ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION A Culture of Charity: American Imams from Cairo to California by Shahab Uddin Malik Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in Anthropology University of California, Riverside, December 2018 Dr. Susan Ossman, Chairperson This dissertation looks at Islamic alms, or zakat, and how imams negotiate its rules as well as advise on a range of charitable practices. Zakat is generally understood as an instrument of poverty alleviation, and yet its conceptualization and practice across transnational contexts intersects with social, economic, and political forces. By taking a look at three major groups—Ikhwan, Sufi, and Southern Californian imams—the thesis unpacks the complexities and multiple trajectories that zakat takes in the post-9/11 and post-Arab Uprising period. This thesis pays special attention to the understanding, teaching, and practice of zakat at both the transnational and personal levels. The principal argument of this dissertation is that zakat is being transformed by cultural and politico-economic forces, most significantly neoliberalism and the ethics of international humanitarianism. For example, though imams are often trained abroad in a seminary like al-Azhar in Egypt, the ubiquity of the NGO complex in Egypt and post- 9/11 legal requirements in the US privilege managed practices, which the imams vii consequently naturalize in their own thinking of zakat. Contemporary zakat practices also bring into relief the tensions and malleability of Islamic legal interpretation as well as provide an analytical framework to explore issues of race, class, and gender. By narrowing the scope of shari’a to zakat and looking at its discourse and transnational circuits, I argue that we can gain an understanding as to how shari’a is practiced by our imams and is articulated within the structures of the nation-state and global economy. I follow American imams who have trained at the shari’a college at al-Azhar University in Cairo, but work in their home communities in Southern California. This multi-sited ethnography takes place over five years in Southern California and seven months in Egypt following these students and their discourses, between schools, mosques, and sites of charitable giving. Through ethnographic description, I show how imams practice zakat by integrating the influences of their socialization with their seminary training. As such, I give three main sketches of the Azhari imam and their differing modes of zakat practice— The Sufi, The Ikhwani, and The Social Worker. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 1 1.1. ZAKAT ............................................................................................................................ 1 1.2. BETWEEN USA AND EGYPT: METHOD AND APPROACH ................................................. 7 1.3. ARGUMENT OUTLINE .................................................................................................... 14 The Ethnographer and the Imams ......................................................................................... 21 1.4. LITERATURE REVIEW .................................................................................................... 23 History of Islamic Charity ..................................................................................................... 24 Global Zakat Practices .......................................................................................................... 29 Anthropologists on Charity.................................................................................................... 42 2. EGYPT AND AMERICA ................................................................................................... 48 2.1. MODERN EGYPT: BACKGROUND................................................................................... 49 al-Azhar ................................................................................................................................. 49 Yusuf Al-Qaradawi ................................................................................................................ 57 The Military and Neoliberal Economy .................................................................................. 60 2.2. ISLAM IN AMERICA ....................................................................................................... 68 2.3. THE LIBRARY: QURAN AND QARADAWI ....................................................................... 84 Fi Sabil Allah, or In God’s Cause ......................................................................................... 90 Reconfiguring Fi Sabil Allah ................................................................................................. 94 3. HAMZA THE IKHWANI .................................................................................................