Premodern Islamic charity functioned as moral self-technology, not mere material redistribution

Evidence

In Islamic cultures of premodernity, for instance, charity and philanthropy were integral to the concept of moral technologies of the self, constituting themselves within the very structures of the central domain. … Yet, the theory, running against the doctrine of progress, makes possible a vision of premodern cultures that defines and articulates their existence through differently structured rationalities, governed by different systems of value. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 583

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Hallaq’s Impossible State and the idea that premodern moral economies are governed by different rationalities than progress-driven modernity.
• SEED: Angle: how philanthropic giving shifted from a moral technology of self-cultivation in premodern Islamic societies to an ethically-detached material transaction in modernity — a lens for modern nonprofit critique.