Faith-based organizations: humanitarian mission or religious missionary

Journal of International Humanitarian Action - Tập 5 Số 1 - 2020
Riham Khafagy1
1Department of International Studies, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Zayed University, Academic City, P.O. BOX: 19282, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Tóm tắt

AbstractThis paper analyzes Islamic FBOs’ humanitarian approaches, programs, and challenges. Politicalized religious interpretations are also on board to investigate their missionary aspects. I design my argument based on Michael Barnett and Janice Grass Stein’s assumption on the impact of social constructions on establishing sacred and secular concepts and spaces. Thus, I study the UK-based Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW) and the Kuwaiti Direct Aid Society (DAS) to examine the influence of their social settings on their humanitarian experiences. My question is “do different social settings shape various humanitarian approach, although of sharing the same religious mission?” I argue that Islamic rules encourage Muslims to be religiously committed to paying charity and showing human and religious solidarity. In this regard, flexible Islamic Fiqh (jurisprudence) allows Muslima to set various socially constructed implementations of these religious commitments. Humanitarian relief is not an exception in this regard. Therefore, Islamic FBOs lay down on a continuum based on their socially constructed models which reflect different interpretations of religious texts and their applications to understanding societal issues as well as various employed strategies of these civil society actors.

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Journal of International Humanitarian Action

Tập 5 Số 1

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