Quo Vadis, Islamic Social Work? Empirical Findings and Theoretical Reflections Converging towards an Alternative Approach

Abstract

Abstract: This final chapter attempts to associate, structure and summarise the principal insights of the contributions to “Exploring Islamic Social Work. Between Community and the Common Good”. Despite differences in their topics and the contexts they treat, the methods applied and angles adopted, all the chapters have a common focus on Muslims as protagonists, both in the field of Islamic social work, and the Islamic thinking around it. The volume’s topic itself is embedded in a new social work scholarly debate, stimulated by the re-emergence of social work’s religious roots in the context of post-secular society. This chapter reviews Islamic social work as an empirical phenomenon, discusses various theological and ethical approaches, again takes up the debate on the common good and examines Islamic social work as alternative social work. Finally, the question of what exactly Islamic social work consists of and the challenges which arise in connection with the ‘Islamic’ attribution are addressed. In this way, both insights and open questions, as well as directions for further research on Islamic social work, are identified within the framework of different research discourses.