Humanitarianism, Islam and 11 September

Neither the word ‘humanitarianism’ nor ‘charity’ has an exact equivalent in Arabic, the formal language of Islam. Nonetheless, injunctions to be generous towards those in need are certainly part of Islamic doctrine; the emphasis on charitable giving is at least as great as in any other religious tradition, and Islam is justly credited with having developed the principles of a welfare state long before Christian Europe.
While Western charity has become a mainstream topic for historians, its equivalent in the Islamic world has only recently begun to be studied with equal ser iousness. Despite the special status within Islam of Arabic as the language of divine revelation, and of the sacred pilgrimage centres in Saudi Arabia, the Middle East has long ceased to be the demographic centre of gravity. Fewer than 15% of Muslims are Arabs, and some 69% live in Asia. However, research on Islamic charities has tended to focus on Sunni Muslim populations in the Arab- Islamic world, Pakistan, Muslim Africa and the Balkans.