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Waqf Making and Commercial Cemeteries: Religious Circulation and Commodification of the Economy of Giving
Author(s) -
Fauzia Amelia
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
the muslim world
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.106
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1478-1913
pISSN - 0027-4909
DOI - 10.1111/muwo.12269
Subject(s) - islam , waqf , commodification , state (computer science) , circulation (fluid dynamics) , sharia , monetization , political science , citation , library science , sociology , media studies , law , engineering , theology , economy , economics , philosophy , computer science , aerospace engineering , algorithm , macroeconomics
After learning of some controversies, conducting interviews, and making a visit to the Firdaus Memorial Park in West Java in 2016 – a place that some critics have referred to as a luxury waqf cemetery – I came to realize that the name ‘Firdaus’ does not solely belong to this cemetery in Indonesia. In Maryland, USA, a waqf Muslim cemetery called Al-Firdaus Memorial Gardens has been in operation since 2008. Both cemeteries are relatively new and are managed under a modernized waqf system. Both observe almost the same simple, grassy type of burial plot resembling that which is advocated in Salafi teachings; they are commercial yet they aim that their profits be used for Islamic dakwa projects; and they both conduct fundraising for charitable activities. Yet they have no connection with, nor do they learn from, one another, and each one fails to realize that they have a ‘sister’ far away. In Islam the name ‘Firdaus’ refers to one of the names of Heaven that are mentioned in the Qur’an, so any Muslim institution could employ the term as a kind of prayer wish or invocation for those who have departed from this life that they may rest in Heaven. The two cemeteries might be connected via the circulation of ideas and practices of a number of contexts which may not be directly interconnected, but they are still linked by the underpinning idea of developing the old concept of waqf – the concept of Muslim endowments dedicated for charitable purposes – in the context of the practicalities of the contemporary neoliberal socio-economic climate. The ongoing and worldwide circulation of ideas and practices brought waqfs, one of the early forms of charitable institutions in the Islamic tradition, to be practiced across historical periods and into geographical regions such as Indonesia, which is relatively far from the traditional center of Islam in the Middle East.