Beneficence and Welfare: Notes for the Comparative Study of “Doing Good” Practices (‘amal Khayr) in the Islamic World

International audienceLeaning on a transversal analysis of the role that charitable practices and actors play in social policies’ transformations in different Islamic contexts, this chapter addresses four analytical issues one need to address in order to understand these reconfigurations. Firstly, it underlines how religious ethos and moral economies are key processes when researching "doing good" practices and social policy, even more in Islamic contexts. Secondly, it addresses the importance of contextualization of the social processes we study, with an eye toward identifying both singularities and circulations. Thirdly, this chapter shows the necessity to take into account both the one who gives and the beneficiaries/recipients (whatever labels they can have in different situations), who are far from being apathetic. Therefore, rather than calling for new typologies, we call for a relational analysis of contemporary "welfare mixes" (Destremau, 2018), as these aid/kheyrie/welfare actors act within different ethical and moral frameworks, temporalities, scales, and institutional cultures