Based on papers presented at a conference held at University of Michigan Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies in May 2000.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Poverty and charity in the rise of Islam / Michael Bonner -- Status-based definitions of need in early Islamic Zakat and maintenance laws / Ingrid Mattson -- The foreign Jewish poor in medieval Egypt / Mark R. Cohen -- "Prices are in God's hands" : the theory and practice of price control in the medieval Islamic world / Adam Sabra -- The functional aspects of medieval Islamic hospitals / Yasser Tabbaa -- Charity and hospitality : hospitals in the Ottoman empire in the early modern period / Miri Shefer -- Charity, the poor, and distribution of alms in Ottoman Algiers / Miriam Hoexter -- Living on the margins of charity : coping with poverty in an Ottoman provincial city / Eyal Ginio -- The charity of the Khedive / Mine Ener -- Imperial gifts and sultanic legitimation during the late Ottoman empire, 1876-1909 / Nadir ???�zbek -- Al-Tahtawi on poverty and welfare / Juan R.I. Cole -- Islam, philanthropy, and political culture in interwar Egypt : the activism of Labiba Ahmad / Beth Baron -- "The child question" : the politics of child welfare in early republican Turkey / Kathryn Libal -- Islamic redistribution through Zakat : historical record and modern realities / Timur Kuran --Charity's legacies : reconsideration of Ottoman imperial endowment-making / Amy Singer.