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Receipts and Other Forms of Islamic Charity: Accounting for piety in modern North India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 March 2018

CHRISTOPHER B. TAYLOR
CHRISTOPHER B. TAYLOR*
Affiliation:
George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA Email: cbtaylor@bu.edu
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Abstract

Islamic almsgiving is on the rise among Muslims in India, as charitable donations by individuals come to supplant landed endowments as the lifeblood of many Islamic associations. Techniques of mass fundraising in India by Islamic revivalist movements such as Deoband facilitated their expansion across the subcontinent. Such fundraising depended on documentary practices such as verification letters, lists of donors, and receipts for donations. This article illustrates how charity receipts and other documents that change hands in ritual Islamic almsgiving are also a key part of new Indian Muslim collective identities. Moral ties as well as money circulate in this Islamic charity economy. Financial documents are Islamic philanthropy's answer to ‘print capitalism’, serving as material rituals of symbolic community across vast distances. Moreover, the use of documents in traditional Islamic almsgiving is also inflecting pious Muslims’ spiritualities. Islamic charity receipts in particular are contributing to the individualization of religiosity among Lucknow Muslims. New modes of accounting (originally intended to ensure financial compliance) also allow Muslim almsgivers to ‘account’ for accrued piety in a perceived spiritual merit economy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 52 , Special Issue 1: Charity and Philanthropy in South Asia , January 2018 , pp. 266 - 296
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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