Volume 1, Number 1 (2017)

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    Fostering Muslim Civic Engagement through Faith-Based Community Organizing
    (2017) Fulton, Brad R.
    Muslims often encounter discriminatory practices similar to those experienced by other minority groups living in the United States. Such practices range from mass incarceration and anti-immigration efforts to racial and religious profiling. In response, a growing number of U.S. Muslim leaders are organizing their communities and collaborating with non-Muslims to address these issues through civic participation and political action. At the same time, several foundations throughout the country have begun asking how to promote civic engagement among U.S. Muslims. Although little is known about U.S. Muslim civic engagement and its outcomes, data from a national study indicate that faith-based community organizing is becoming a viable pathway for Muslim communities to (1) strengthen themselves internally by developing civic leaders and mobilizing everyday Muslims to address issues affecting their community and (2) strengthen their external ties by bridging religious and social differences and by promoting policies that also benefit non-Muslims.
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    Situating Muslim Philanthropy in Time and Place
    (2017) Ibrahim, Barbara Lethem
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    U.S. Muslim Philanthropy after 9/11
    (2017) GhaneaBassiri, Kambiz
    Since 9/11, U.S. Muslim philanthropy has generally been framed in terms of national security and civil liberties. In practice, however, U.S. Muslims’ charitable giving has posed no threat to national security, nor has the government’s closing of some of the largest Muslim relief organizations after 9/11 had the chilling effect that many predicted it would have on U.S. Muslims’ giving. This article argues that American Muslim philanthropy post-9/11 belies enduring presuppositions about the alleged ‘rigidity” of Islamic norms and the alleged “insularity” of the U.S. Muslim community. Each of these presuppositions has yielded widespread misapprehensions about the nature of Muslim philanthropy in the U.S. since 9/11. Contrary to these misapprehensions, the actual philanthropic practice of the U.S. Muslim community in the post-9/11 moment highlights the polyvalence and fluidity of the public practice of Islam. In the fluid space of practice, American Muslims have brought together Islamic vocabularies of charity and American legal and sociopolitical norms regarding philanthropy to forge new relations across groups of varying social, religious, political, cultural, and economic backgrounds.
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    Exploring the Giving Practices in American Mosques: Why Do Muslims Give So Little to Their Mosques?
    (2017) Bagby, Ihsan
    This article represents the first effort to explore the giving practices of Muslims in American mosques. The research for this article was based on two studies: (1) a previously published study, “The American Mosque 2011,” which consisted of 524 telephone interviews of mosque leaders; and (2) a previously unpublished 2013 study of 3 mosques and the 2016 follow-up interviews with donors from the three mosques. The results show that mosque attendees give much less than their counterparts in churches. Interviews with donors in the three mosques were conducted in order to draw some preliminary conclusions as to why the giving rate in mosques is low. The interviews indicate that one of the underlying factors for the low rate of giving is that mosque attendees do not have a clear theology for giving to mosques and that a culture of giving to mosques does not exist among immigrant Muslims. It must be emphasized that this article is exploratory. Broader and more in-depth studies are needed to develop definitive conclusions about giving practices in mosques.
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    From The Editors’ Desk
    (2017) Alexander, Scott C.; Siddiqui, Shariq A.