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Giving to God: Islamic Charity in Revolutionary Times
Giving to God examines the everyday practices of Islamic giving in post-revolutionary Egypt. From foods prepared in Sufi soup kitchens, to meals distributed by pious volunteers in slums, to almsgiving, these acts are ultimately about giving to God by giving to the poor. Surprisingly, many who practice such giving say that they do not care about the poor, instead framing their actions within a unique non-compassionate ethics of giving. At first, this form of giving may appear deeply selfish, but further consideration reveals that it avoids many of the problems associated with the idea of “charity.” Using the Egyptian uprising in 2011 and its call for social justice as a backdrop, this beautifully crafted ethnography suggests that “giving a man a fish” might ultimately be more revolutionary than “teaching a man to fish.”
248 pages, Paperback
Published February 26, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 18, 2024
Read this book for my GS senior seminar (intervention and politics of humanitarianism). Such a fascinating book about performance of giving and receiving. Is it charity if for “selfish” reasons? Really dives into intersection of religion and charity. Would highly recommend to any both as a look at humanitarianism efforts in Egypt, and to redefine charity.
July 6, 2026
A book lended by Billy.
An incredibly interesting read where the author strikes a paradox. The pious people attend to the human by decentering them. By abiding God’s scripture they do the most radical act of giving without expecting anything else. They give without expecting anything from the person in front of them, and the recipient never has to earn it or pay it back, which is what makes it radical, because it steps outside the ordinary logic of the gift where I give and I am owed.
The deservingness is simply assumed, like sheikh Mahmoud may he rest in peace. Whatever the giver expects comes from God, and that return is intangible and deferred, which is why the giving reads less like generosity and more like handing over what was never fully yours. And in a Sufi logic we are all poor, we all ask to get something from other people, be it material, physical, or emotional.
The book shows that there are many facets of Islam. There is the neoliberal version that loves the hadith about the Prophet selling a beggar’s rags to buy him an axe, teach a man to fish, and wants to shrink the state and turn the poor into entrepreneurs. There is the activist position that says only structural reform through the state will fix poverty. And there are Mittermaier’s pious givers, who refuse both, because they feed the person in front of them now, today, and leave the return to God, deferring nothing and blaming no one.
That hadith of the Prophet is really the teach a man to fish saying in another form, and it carries the same problem. It assumes anyone can make it, as if the newly taught fisherman has access to a boat and to clean water to fish and make a living, but as we know monopolies bar the entry and pollution makes it infeasible at times. So the problem is not a skill one, it is what are we doing with all the fish already fished.
There is also a tension the book covers, which is that in a state that does not look after the poor, performance becomes a survival strategy. Recipients learn to dramatize their suffering to catch a giver’s eye, and this sits awkwardly against the whole logic of unconditional giving, because if giving is truly unconditional no one should have to perform, and yet they do, because not every giver is a pious one and some still want proof of the deserving poor. So the pious giver decenters the human while the performing recipient is forced to recenter themselves, with Ghazali behind this and his sense that the poor are a permanence decreed from God. Ghazali being a philosopher who said the recipients should not say thank you but expect what is rightfully theirs.
An incredibly interesting read where the author strikes a paradox. The pious people attend to the human by decentering them. By abiding God’s scripture they do the most radical act of giving without expecting anything else. They give without expecting anything from the person in front of them, and the recipient never has to earn it or pay it back, which is what makes it radical, because it steps outside the ordinary logic of the gift where I give and I am owed.
The deservingness is simply assumed, like sheikh Mahmoud may he rest in peace. Whatever the giver expects comes from God, and that return is intangible and deferred, which is why the giving reads less like generosity and more like handing over what was never fully yours. And in a Sufi logic we are all poor, we all ask to get something from other people, be it material, physical, or emotional.
The book shows that there are many facets of Islam. There is the neoliberal version that loves the hadith about the Prophet selling a beggar’s rags to buy him an axe, teach a man to fish, and wants to shrink the state and turn the poor into entrepreneurs. There is the activist position that says only structural reform through the state will fix poverty. And there are Mittermaier’s pious givers, who refuse both, because they feed the person in front of them now, today, and leave the return to God, deferring nothing and blaming no one.
That hadith of the Prophet is really the teach a man to fish saying in another form, and it carries the same problem. It assumes anyone can make it, as if the newly taught fisherman has access to a boat and to clean water to fish and make a living, but as we know monopolies bar the entry and pollution makes it infeasible at times. So the problem is not a skill one, it is what are we doing with all the fish already fished.
There is also a tension the book covers, which is that in a state that does not look after the poor, performance becomes a survival strategy. Recipients learn to dramatize their suffering to catch a giver’s eye, and this sits awkwardly against the whole logic of unconditional giving, because if giving is truly unconditional no one should have to perform, and yet they do, because not every giver is a pious one and some still want proof of the deserving poor. So the pious giver decenters the human while the performing recipient is forced to recenter themselves, with Ghazali behind this and his sense that the poor are a permanence decreed from God. Ghazali being a philosopher who said the recipients should not say thank you but expect what is rightfully theirs.
October 2, 2021
Recounts Amira Mittermeier’s fieldwork examining the practice of Islamic charity and its ethical implications taking place against the backdrop of the 2011 Egyptian uprising. This revolutionary setting is important in contextualizing the practice of everyday charity and how it fits into, or rather is disparate from, the concept of social justice. The comparison of Islamic versus secular charity was particularly interesting, especially its emphasis on how it is non-compassionate (and how this may be a good thing).
May 20, 2024
Very interesting book on the ethics of giving and what it really means “to give to God”. It also gives an insight into the Arab Spring uprising in Egypt and how different people have gone through this process.
May 31, 2024
Very insightful and really made me consider how i think about aid.
November 25, 2024
A fantastic ethnography. Bit repetitive at times, but Mittermaier has a real gift for writing.
June 14, 2026
Boekje dat ik moest lezen voor school. Vanuit sociaal werk zeker relevant om internationaal inzicht op te doen, maar daarbuiten zou ik het niet per se aanraden.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews