Event Summary

UK scholar Jonathan Benthall Will Discuss New Research on Zakat Committees and Humanitarian and Development Work.

Event Description

For centuries, mosques in the West Bank have been running informal voluntary committees charged with the administration of charitable donations from local communities. How these "zakat" committees have evolved, been regulated and politicized is at the core of a new working paper by Emanuel Schaeublin of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding in Geneva, Switzerland (The West Bank Zakat Committees (1977-2009) In the Local Context).

UK scholar Jonathan Benthall assisted with the research on this project. He will be in the U.S. on January 14^th to share the research results and participate in a brown bag lunch and roundtable discussion on the issues it raises. Alistair Millar, President of the Fourth Freedom Forum and Co-Director of the Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation, will provide commentary, and the panel will be moderated by Kay Guinane of the Charity and Security Network.

Speakers

Jonathan Benthall, author of The Palestinian Zakat Committees 1993-2007 and Their Contested Interpretations, co-author of The Charitable Crescent: Politics of Aid in the Muslim World and an honorary research fellow in the Department of Anthropology, University College London

Alistair Millar, President of the Fourth Freedom Forum and Co-Director of the Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation