Publications by Christopher B Taylor
Fieldwork in Religion, 2022
This article appeared in the Special Issue "Critical Terms in the Ethnography of Religion" of the... more This article appeared in the Special Issue "Critical Terms in the Ethnography of Religion" of the journal "Fieldwork in Religion"
Islamic scriptures teach that charity is best given in secret. If it is a secret, however, this poses a methodological problem for the ethnographer. How do we study it? Answering this question has led me to some surprising insights for fieldwork in religion. My recent research investigated five Islamic charity organizations operating in north India. As an anthropologist, I now see “ethics” not only as a critical component of culture, or what we take as the object of our study as ethnographers, but I argue that ethics are also a tool that enables our work. Our ethics, and the professional processes that encode them like the Institutional Review Board (IRB), are as much an indispensable tool for the field as the notebooks, pens and microphones we carry.
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Modern Asian Studies, 2018
Islamic almsgiving is on the rise among Muslims in India, as charitable donations by individuals ... more 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’ spiritualties. 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 spiritual merit.
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Lucknow, a city once dominated by Shi’a nawab rulers, is now known for elites’ nostalgia for Isla... more Lucknow, a city once dominated by Shi’a nawab rulers, is now known for elites’ nostalgia for Islamicate pasts and masses seeking better futures. This special issue builds interdisciplinary dialogue about a city overwhelmingly represented in historical accounts and emplaces Lucknow within recent investigation of urban India in which the city of nawabs is largely absent. Focusing on the old city of Lucknow where Muslims still demographically predominate, our introduction blends ethnographic exploration of cultural memory with new statistical data on the old city’s changing population, socioeconomic ‘backwardness,’ and segregation. We frame Lucknow’s Islamicate old city in contemporary times as a place where north India’s beleaguered Muslim minority negotiates between their remembered cosmopolitan past and a present burdened by structural violence and communal riots—blending (rather than choosing between) modernity and tradition, cosmopolitanism and provinciality, melancholia and aspirations, history and future.
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Lucknow is world-famous for Islamic learning. The city produced the ‘ulama of Firangi Mahal, the ... more Lucknow is world-famous for Islamic learning. The city produced the ‘ulama of Firangi Mahal, the Sunni seminary of Nadwat al-’Ulama, and the revival and consolidation of a distinctly Indian Shi’ism. In contemporary India, however, critics lament madrasa education’s obscurantism, decrying its declining ‘usefulness’ in the 21st century. Yet a view of madrasas as merely cloistered spaces, impervious to traffic with contemporary life, is misleading. As clamour over ‘Muslim backwardness’ has become more shrill in recent years, Nadwa madrasa has claimed a role as a provider of welfare in Lucknow. This paper presents the religious sphere in Lucknow, viewed through the case of Nadwa and its students, as a marketplace for jobs in scholarship and ritual leadership as well as a site in the transnational economy of alms. I evaluate its influence in Lucknow’s social circles and its ability to maintain prestige (and Saudi funding) amidst 21st century constraints.
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Ph.D. Dissertation by Christopher B Taylor
New Islamic charities and madrasas in Lucknow, India are promoting Islam as a means of developmen... more New Islamic charities and madrasas in Lucknow, India are promoting Islam as a means of development, through revival and reinterpretation of Islamic almsgiving (zakat) and ethical teachings on money and community. Since the partition of India in 1947, Muslims have struggled as a beleaguered minority, the largest in India’s diverse democracy. The relative socioeconomic status of Muslims in India is in decline, nearly on par with dalits (historically oppressed castes). Critics claim that “Muslim backwardness” originates in outmoded commitments to madrasas and illiberal Islamic law (sharī’a). The public views Muslim underdevelopment with alarm, as holding India back from being a leader in the global economy.
This dissertation examines the rise and transformation of zakat in contemporary India. As historical institutions of Muslim welfare and endowments (waqf) decline, a new zakat economy is supplanting them. Yet zakat is a distinctly different social form of welfare. The contemporary practice of zakat reveals contradictions that invite reconsideration of our ideas about philanthropy, civic engagement, and Islam. Voluntary donations of zakat are a ritual obligation for all Muslims, and people in Lucknow often speak of the spiritual merit that accrues to almsgivers. I explore the paradox of zakat as “obligated voluntarism” that is at once selfless and self-interested and analyze the cultural implications of such ethicsal paradoxes. While the Qur'an encourages giving in modest secrecy, new forms of zakat are not secret but publicly institutionalized and visible. These shifts even alter the practice of piety by incorporating a more individually accountable, calculative dimension to Muslims’ faith.
Morality is often imagined to be at odds with capitalism and its focus on profit accumulation. The compatibility of capitalism and Islam, in particular, has been in question since Max Weber’s famous inquiry into religions, economy, and ethics. Yet new Islamic charities re-orient Lucknow’s Muslims towards perceived requirements of capitalist markets. This New Islamic charities brand of “ethical entrepreneurism” is rooted in Islamic rituals and morality rather than dispelling both in pursuit of modernity; zakat entrepreneurs promote development as simultaneously economic and moral. Through ethnography, surveys, and close readings of Islamic texts, this study makes key contributions to economic anthropology and study of ethics.
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Best Graduate Paper "New Islamic Charities in North India: Re-Visiting Islam's 'Moral Economy,' "... more Best Graduate Paper "New Islamic Charities in North India: Re-Visiting Islam's 'Moral Economy,' " excerpted from Ph.D. dissertation
In the paper, Taylor argues that the practice of Islamic charity in India today reveals contradictions that invite us to reconsider our ideas of philanthropy and the relationship between the economy and Islam. Drawing on his year and a half of work on new Islamic charities, Taylor illustrates how Muslim reformers seek to re-orient India’s Muslims toward the perceived requirements of capitalist markets. Morality is often imagined to be at odds with capitalism, yet these “ethical entrepreneurs” promote development as simultaneously economic and moral. Taylor will present his winning paper at the Society for Economic Anthropology annual meeting in Athens, Georgia in 2016.
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Selected as one of three Finalists in the competition for Best Graduate Paper from the Associatio... more Selected as one of three Finalists in the competition for Best Graduate Paper from the Association for Political and Legal Anthropology (APLA) for paper excerpted from the dissertation.
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anthropologyworks Blog, a project of the Culture in Global Affairs (CIGA) research and policy pro... more anthropologyworks Blog, a project of the Culture in Global Affairs (CIGA) research and policy program of the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
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Selected Presentations by Christopher B Taylor
Islamic teachings hold that charity is best given in secret. Long before Marcel Mauss famously m... more Islamic teachings hold that charity is best given in secret. Long before Marcel Mauss famously made similar arguments in his classic theory of the gift, the Qur’an (2:271) warned Muslims that gifts can be injurious to recipients, as when giving becomes a vehicle for self-aggrandizement or public status claims. In north India, however, new Islamic charities are growing in number and significance by employing public relations strategies that make gifts highly visible and far from secret. Yet scholars of Islamic law and ordinary Muslims alike in India are lauding such new organizations for reviving and modernizing the Islamic ritual of almsgiving to address Muslim poverty, even when they depart from older practices. This paper presents data from five new Islamic charity organizations operating in Lucknow, India as well as data from charity practices among Muslims in the public bazaar. Charity given “in secret” in fact appears in numerous public practices. From the habituated and ubiquitous charity for street begging to the institutionalized donation events broadcast on social media, I analyze these practices as separate processes of performative identity-formation and public meaning-making among the community of pious Muslims in north India, even as “performed secrecy” remains a central ethical concern. Conclusions suggest that Islamic charity gifts are acceptable as public displays for the same reason that Mauss theorized gifts are necessary – in the service of group solidarity. Instead of Maussian alliance-making, however, this paper illustrates an alternative process for political solidarity of Muslims – India’s largest minority – through shared ethical identity formation shaped by gifting practices.
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This paper is an inquiry into the role of “obligatory almsgiving” (zakat) within Muslim humanitar... more This paper is an inquiry into the role of “obligatory almsgiving” (zakat) within Muslim humanitarianism. I describe a transformation in contemporary zakat in north India, particularly the rise in crowd-sourced financing through zakat and decline of charitable endowments (awqaf). I draw on fieldwork in a madrasa and five charity organizations. The paper, drawing on fieldwork in a madrasa and five charity organizations, presents a theorization of two modes of zakat. What I term the “purity ethos” and the “developmentalist ethos” are each deeply rooted in Islamic scripture and apparent in everyday Muslim practice. Zakat is a ritual of purification for the donor, but new Islamic charities focus on the effectiveness of philanthropy for the recipient and its potential for transformative and systemic redistribution. These two modes emerge from a seeming paradox in Islamic teachings on philanthropy. Zakat is an obligation, an “alms-tax,” yet ideas about voluntary giving are inherent in Muslims’ practices of zakat. I propose an analysis of zakat as rooted in “paradox of obligated voluntarism” to better inform scholarly understandings of this ritual pillar of Islam. The specificity of religio-legal guidance on zakat in shari’a invites inquiry into the contradictions of this paradox and how ordinary Muslim practitioners navigate them. Conclusions emphasize the importance of the theorization of zakat in understanding new forms of Muslim public ethics in north India, as the ritual of zakat (historically given in modest secrecy) undergoes a transformation to newly public social institutions and more widespread practice.
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New Islamic charities are re-inventing Islamic almsgiving (zakat) as moral and social “investmen... more New Islamic charities are re-inventing Islamic almsgiving (zakat) as moral and social “investment” in both Muslim communities and in India’s economy. Almsgivers interpret returns on this investment in both macroeconomic and spiritual terms. The ritual of zakat has long represented a reinforcement of local solidarities and kinship networks. Today, however, the priorities of many Muslim almsgivers are shifting, partly through greater recognition of (and anxiety about) the “moral returns” of charity – who receives zakat and what spiritual benefits accrue to the donor as a result. In the past decades, receipts for zakat have risen in popularity in order to assuage anxieties over giving alms “correctly,” as Muslims became more conscious of the proper categories and methods of giving zakat in scriptures. However, more documentation is not a panacea, as the receipts meant to assuage anxieties produce further concern over their veracity. The widespread misgivings over giving, and whether zakat was done “correctly,” are concerns that partook of larger processes observed by anthropologists in Muslim societies that are adjusting to dislocating and destabilizing forces of modernity. This developmentalist, seemingly modernist approach to Islamic charity that is attractive to university-educated Indian Muslims is paradoxically linked to increasing religiosity and religious community. This paper concludes by illustrating how charity receipts and other documents that change hands in ritual Islamic almsgiving are also a key part of new Indian Muslim collective identities.
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An important shift is occurring in the Muslim world, as traditional forms of Islamic almsgiving g... more An important shift is occurring in the Muslim world, as traditional forms of Islamic almsgiving give way to the utilization of Islamic charity for “development” and effective poverty-alleviation. This lecture describes the rise of such “new” Islamic charities in India. Taylor discusses, for example, how a Muslim preacher from the madrasa at Deoband exhorts Muslims to give charity as the Prophet Muhammad did, even as he invents new forms of disbursing charity that resemble modern NGOs. Taylor argues that scholars need to re-think their analyses of zakat – one of the five pillars of Islam – and its place in economy and society. Going beyond prior studies on Islamic charity as merely a religious obligation, a welfare “safety net”, or the heart of Islam’s moral economy, this lecture will provide evidence of the increasing articulation between today’s liberalizing market economies and Islam.
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Publications by Christopher B Taylor
Islamic scriptures teach that charity is best given in secret. If it is a secret, however, this poses a methodological problem for the ethnographer. How do we study it? Answering this question has led me to some surprising insights for fieldwork in religion. My recent research investigated five Islamic charity organizations operating in north India. As an anthropologist, I now see “ethics” not only as a critical component of culture, or what we take as the object of our study as ethnographers, but I argue that ethics are also a tool that enables our work. Our ethics, and the professional processes that encode them like the Institutional Review Board (IRB), are as much an indispensable tool for the field as the notebooks, pens and microphones we carry.
Ph.D. Dissertation by Christopher B Taylor
This dissertation examines the rise and transformation of zakat in contemporary India. As historical institutions of Muslim welfare and endowments (waqf) decline, a new zakat economy is supplanting them. Yet zakat is a distinctly different social form of welfare. The contemporary practice of zakat reveals contradictions that invite reconsideration of our ideas about philanthropy, civic engagement, and Islam. Voluntary donations of zakat are a ritual obligation for all Muslims, and people in Lucknow often speak of the spiritual merit that accrues to almsgivers. I explore the paradox of zakat as “obligated voluntarism” that is at once selfless and self-interested and analyze the cultural implications of such ethicsal paradoxes. While the Qur'an encourages giving in modest secrecy, new forms of zakat are not secret but publicly institutionalized and visible. These shifts even alter the practice of piety by incorporating a more individually accountable, calculative dimension to Muslims’ faith.
Morality is often imagined to be at odds with capitalism and its focus on profit accumulation. The compatibility of capitalism and Islam, in particular, has been in question since Max Weber’s famous inquiry into religions, economy, and ethics. Yet new Islamic charities re-orient Lucknow’s Muslims towards perceived requirements of capitalist markets. This New Islamic charities brand of “ethical entrepreneurism” is rooted in Islamic rituals and morality rather than dispelling both in pursuit of modernity; zakat entrepreneurs promote development as simultaneously economic and moral. Through ethnography, surveys, and close readings of Islamic texts, this study makes key contributions to economic anthropology and study of ethics.
In the paper, Taylor argues that the practice of Islamic charity in India today reveals contradictions that invite us to reconsider our ideas of philanthropy and the relationship between the economy and Islam. Drawing on his year and a half of work on new Islamic charities, Taylor illustrates how Muslim reformers seek to re-orient India’s Muslims toward the perceived requirements of capitalist markets. Morality is often imagined to be at odds with capitalism, yet these “ethical entrepreneurs” promote development as simultaneously economic and moral. Taylor will present his winning paper at the Society for Economic Anthropology annual meeting in Athens, Georgia in 2016.
Selected Presentations by Christopher B Taylor
Islamic scriptures teach that charity is best given in secret. If it is a secret, however, this poses a methodological problem for the ethnographer. How do we study it? Answering this question has led me to some surprising insights for fieldwork in religion. My recent research investigated five Islamic charity organizations operating in north India. As an anthropologist, I now see “ethics” not only as a critical component of culture, or what we take as the object of our study as ethnographers, but I argue that ethics are also a tool that enables our work. Our ethics, and the professional processes that encode them like the Institutional Review Board (IRB), are as much an indispensable tool for the field as the notebooks, pens and microphones we carry.
This dissertation examines the rise and transformation of zakat in contemporary India. As historical institutions of Muslim welfare and endowments (waqf) decline, a new zakat economy is supplanting them. Yet zakat is a distinctly different social form of welfare. The contemporary practice of zakat reveals contradictions that invite reconsideration of our ideas about philanthropy, civic engagement, and Islam. Voluntary donations of zakat are a ritual obligation for all Muslims, and people in Lucknow often speak of the spiritual merit that accrues to almsgivers. I explore the paradox of zakat as “obligated voluntarism” that is at once selfless and self-interested and analyze the cultural implications of such ethicsal paradoxes. While the Qur'an encourages giving in modest secrecy, new forms of zakat are not secret but publicly institutionalized and visible. These shifts even alter the practice of piety by incorporating a more individually accountable, calculative dimension to Muslims’ faith.
Morality is often imagined to be at odds with capitalism and its focus on profit accumulation. The compatibility of capitalism and Islam, in particular, has been in question since Max Weber’s famous inquiry into religions, economy, and ethics. Yet new Islamic charities re-orient Lucknow’s Muslims towards perceived requirements of capitalist markets. This New Islamic charities brand of “ethical entrepreneurism” is rooted in Islamic rituals and morality rather than dispelling both in pursuit of modernity; zakat entrepreneurs promote development as simultaneously economic and moral. Through ethnography, surveys, and close readings of Islamic texts, this study makes key contributions to economic anthropology and study of ethics.
In the paper, Taylor argues that the practice of Islamic charity in India today reveals contradictions that invite us to reconsider our ideas of philanthropy and the relationship between the economy and Islam. Drawing on his year and a half of work on new Islamic charities, Taylor illustrates how Muslim reformers seek to re-orient India’s Muslims toward the perceived requirements of capitalist markets. Morality is often imagined to be at odds with capitalism, yet these “ethical entrepreneurs” promote development as simultaneously economic and moral. Taylor will present his winning paper at the Society for Economic Anthropology annual meeting in Athens, Georgia in 2016.