Sub-projects

This research comprises various sub-projects.

"The entanglements of Islamic Charity" - Radhika Gupta (Principal Investigator)

Across Zanzibar and mainland Tanzania, this project follows Islamic charitable initiatives operating within educational settings, from small locally grounded projects to organizations supported by transnational donors. Rather than approaching charity as a unified or purely humanitarian domain, the project foregrounds variation within Islamic charitable worlds, tracing how religious ethics, education, and civic engagement are aligned and reworked in everyday practice amid political unicertainty and shifting imaginaries.

“Urban Disaster and Dissident Ethics in Karachi, Pakistan” - Salwa Tareen (Postdoc)

Amidst Karachi’s crumbling urban landscape, public grievances against state negligence have transformed ordinary charitable giving into a form of collective protest. Continuing her extensive ethnographic research, Salwa traces how charity serves as a platform for righteous dissent in one of the world’s most beleaguered city. Rather than romanticize charity as a compassionate respite from urban violence or criticize it as a capitulation to neoliberalism, Salwa seeks to explore how Karachiites utilize Muslim ethics, political protest, and popular grievance in their demand to be cared for.

"Moral Worlds in the Classroom: Islamic Charity and Education in Tanzania" - Francesca Selano (PhD candidate)

Across Zanzibar and mainland Tanzania, this project follows Islamic charitable initiatives operating within educational settings, from small locally grounded projects to organizations supported by transnational donors. Rather than approaching charity as a unified or purely humanitarian domain, the project foregrounds variation within Islamic charitable worlds, tracing how religious ethics, education, and civic engagement are aligned and reworked in everyday practice amid political uncertainty and shifting imaginaries.

“Islamic Charity, Sovereignties and the Social Contract in Hyderabad, India” - Arman Hasan (PhD candidate)

Arman's PhD project is located in Hyderabad, India. He hopes to understand how Islamic charities work for the welfare of the marginalised, in between the political sovereignty of the state and God's sovereignty. His project aims to study the different scales and forms that Islamic charities and charitable endowments are adopting as they complicate the notion of the social contract for Muslims in India.

Fieldwork area