Islamist organizations won support by providing welfare where governments failed.

Evidence

In Egypt by the early 1990s Islamic organizations had developed an extensive network of organizations which, filling a vacuum left by the government, provided health, welfare, educational, and other services to a large number of Egypt’s poor. After the 1992 earthquake in Cairo, these organizations “were on the streets within hours, handing out food and blankets while the Government’s relief efforts lagged.” … In these and other Muslim societies, Islamist organizations, banned from political activity, were providing social services comparable to those of the political machines in the United States in the early twentieth century. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 305

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Parallels the ‘on sacrifice’ institutional-analysis theme and the general lesson that religious/political movements gain ground by filling governance vacuums, echoing the private-ordering dynamics in the diamond trade pieces.
• SEED: Essay angle: religious parallel-states as infrastructure — how mosque-linked welfare networks strategically out-compete state provision, using the Cairo earthquake and Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood as case studies.
• XREF: connects to: Hamas won Palestinian support by delivering services where the state failed — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 650