Dis-closing Intervals

Abstract

Under the sign of actualising a zakat-grounded justice, institutional actors known in Indonesia as LAZ (Lembaga Amil Zakat or Zakat Management Bodies) demonstrate the potential inherent in Islam for bringing about significant improvements in the life conditions of the poor, safeguarding the delivery of prosperity in this life and the next. It is their mission to collect zakat and other resources from the expanding middle and upper classes, to subsequently transfer them to those deemed worthy of assistance. LAZ’s systematic interventions in the spheres of disaster relief, education, health and livelihood activities of the poor through the deployment of Islamic micro-finance, forms a major dimension of the manner in which these institutions endeavour to deliver on their promises of making present difficulties pass, hastening the coming of a thriving future. The pursuit of a syariah-compliant mode of community development is instrumental in synthesising time in a specific manner, channelling its flow in specific directions. Building on the poststructuralist philosophy of time of Deleuze, Foucault and Derrida, the chapter elaborates on the theoretical significance of the temporal caesuras LAZ accomplish, highlighting the complexity of their carving, stressing the performativity of their implementation and explicating the techniques of their governance.