Muslims for Effective Altruism

By Ahmed Ghoor, Kaleem @ 2022-07-27T16:54 (+239)

TLDR: 

We are finally making progress on Muslims for Effective Altruism. For the next few months, we have someone working 0.5FTE on furthering the project and preparing it to be launched as its own organisation. We’ve linked a doc outlining our strategy in more detail and added a lot of other interesting info and considerations regarding Muslims for EA. Anyone interested in assisting this project, or wanting to keep up-to-date with its development, can email Ahmed or book a time on his calendly.

The “Why?”

Scale 

• Muslims are currently estimated to make up about 24% of the world population (1.8 billion people), and, being the fastest growing religion due partially to birth rates, the number of people in this altruistic community is set only to increase if current trends continue.^[1]
• The amount of charitable funding raised yearly through the Islamic institution of Zakat is estimated to be ~$550 billion ^[2]. However, the total amount of charitable funding is likely much greater because many Muslims donate other forms of Islamic charity throughout the year, which does not count towards Zakat figures.

Neglectedness

• To our knowledge, there are currently no organisations actively trying to direct Zakat, or other Muslim resources, to the highest impact evidence-based interventions, using frameworks advocated for by Effective Altruism.
• There have been no successful attempts to involve Muslim influencers in the EA community, or research and document the overlaps between ideas of effective altruism and understandings of Islam.
• The number of Muslims in the EA community is minimal. In the 2018 EA Survey, 7 respondents (out of 2607) identified as Muslim, and in the 2019 version, only 4 (of 1892) identified as Muslim.^[3]This is compared to 41 who identified as Jewish (before EA for Jews was started) and 209 that identified as Christian in the 2018 survey.

Tractability

• Although community building within religious communities does pose some unique challenges, there are also comparative advantages. Individuals in religious communities are generally already convinced, by Scripture, that they should be dedicating a portion of their time and wealth to service. Therefore, not much energy needs to be given to convince the community to serve. It’s simply the “How/Where” that is up for debate.
• There are several philosophical and normative overlaps between ideas of effective altruism and understandings of Islam, which means we don’t have to distort or radically reinterpret religious texts to be in line with EA causes or principles (such as effective giving, animal welfare, or caring about the longterm future).

Other reasons:

• There is a lot of overlap between community building in the Muslim community and community building in Africa and Asia (where Islam is a major religion in many countries). Work is currently being started in the African community building space, showing significant growth potential over the next year. These projects could, therefore, complement each other.
• Attempts to explore alternative “non-western” approaches to EA frameworks may benefit significantly from Islamic intellectual traditions, which itself inherited Greek philosophy and developed on it for several centuries.^[4]

The “How?”

Short-term 

• Carry out the first phase of community building
  • Focus on engaging Muslims already in EA (low-hanging fruit).
  • Create a closed Facebook and Slack community group.
  • Understand human resource capacity and skill sets within the community, which may inform, in conjunction with all the potential projects brainstormed by that point, where the next level of low-hanging fruit is.
• Develop essential “Islam and EA” content
  • Before we can expand to doing outreach outside the existing EA Muslim community, it is vital that we first have some essential content about EA from an Islamic perspective. The first question many Muslims may ask is, “Is this compatible with my faith?” and we should be able to provide concise answers.
    • It would not necessarily have to be a lot of content but simply around the fundamental concepts of - 1 - doing good - 2 - effectively - and 3 - based on evidence and reason.
• Develop a website.
  • Depending on the strategy taken, the website may or may not be branded with the name “Effective Altruism”.
  • This will require funding and volunteers to design and host the site.

Medium-term

• Have a core team of volunteers that can start operationalising different project ideas listed in the document. Which ideas might depend on the specific skill-sets and passions of the group, but a priority may be further developing the Islam and EA content.
• Start outreach to the various audiences outlined in the document in various capacities.
• Start establishing spinoff projects/groups that are unaffiliated but EA in spirit, if that is the strategy adopted.

Long-term

• Start collaborating with major Zakat fund organisations in more established capacities, to start working on distributing Zakat in more effective ways.
• Start implementing a module on strategies for being more effective in our altruism at international Muslim Seminaries as a part of their program (the next generation of Muslim scholars and community leaders).
• Facilitate yearly conferences and host regular workshops for students, professionals and religious scholars.
• Have an EA Muslims fellowship syllabus refined through several iterations of the course.
• Have a collection of alternative literature that applies to the whole EA community on ways of thinking about being an EA based on historically neglected worldviews.

The “Who?”,^[5][6]

Potential Target Audiences: 

• EAs who are Muslim
• Muslims who are proto-EAs
• Influencers of the Muslim community
• Muslim NGOs and Philanthropists
• Scholars of Islam that share EA values

Currently working on this project: 

Ahmed Ghoor (Me)

I am currently studying for a B.Sc. in Mathematical Statistics and Computer Science at the University of Cape Town, and have also been studying Islamic Studies under various teachers in South Africa and abroad. I am the current chairperson of Effective Altruism UCT and the UCT Muslim Students Association (MSA), and a fellow in the Auwal Socio-Economic Research Institute’s Future Leaders Program.^[7]I am really excited to have the opportunity to combine my studies in Islamic intellectual history and contemporary legal theory, with my passion for effective altruism by working on this project. 

Kaleem Ahmid

Kaleem is a South African Muslim who’s been active/interested in EA community building, global health and wellbeing, biosecurity, and (recently) effective interior design. He started Muslims for EA after discussing his views on the compatibility of Islamic and EA values with members of the community, who encouraged him to go on and create something formal. Unfortunately, he never really had time to dedicate to the project, but he is extremely excited for someone else to take it over, and might even work on it full time in the future. He currently lives in Boston and works for CEA as a project manager for Boston and NYC property development. 

Supporting the project 

What we’re looking for at this point

• People that are particularly skilled or passionate about working on Muslims for EA or a particular Muslims for EA project idea. Including, but not limited to:
  • Muslims already in the EA community building space.
  • Students and Scholars of Islamic Studies.
  • Individuals and activists working in Islamic NGO spaces.
  • Muslim professionals and researchers in EA cause areas.
  • Website designers and developers.
     
• Funding for research, community building and websites. Specific things we’d like to fund are:
  • Funding to offer to Muslim scholars as a stipend for completing an EA intro fellowship or other virtual programs.
  • Funding to compensate Islamic Scholars for research work on Islam and EA.
  • The creation of an Muslims for EA Fellowship with scholars and students of Islamic Studies to explore and think about ideas of effective altruism from Islamic perspectives.
  • The design and hosting of websites for this group or any spinoff groups that are EA in spirit but not in name.
  • Hosting a Muslim NGO conference focused on doing good more effectively.
  • Attending international Islamic philanthropy or NGO conferences to represent EA and present EA ideas to other attendees
  • Compensation for community builders to be able to spend more time on the project after my 3-month internship is over.
  • A Masters/Doctoral level EA-Aligned Islamic Studies research project.

How to get in touch

If any person or organisation is interested in assisting this project or wants to keep up-to-date with its development, please feel free to contact me via email or book a time on my calendly.

Acknowledgements

Jordan Pieters, JD (Bauman), David Nash, George Rosenfeld, Zainab Chirwa, Zakariyau Yusuf, Alimi Salifou. 

1. ^{^}

   Pew Research Centre 

2. ^{^}

   https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/world-zakat-forum-optimizing-funds-to-reduce-poverty/1640107 

3. ^{^}

   Although it is certainly more  - we have more people in our WhatsApp group than the EA survey has Muslim respondents.

4. ^{^}

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_philosophy 

5. ^{^}

   Not the band “The Who”

6. ^{^}

   Also not “The World Health Organisation” 

7. ^{^}

   https://www.asri.org.za/future-leaders/