Muslims worldwide contribute an estimated USD 1 trillion annually through Zakat and other forms of religious charity. Yet across much of the Islamic world, including Pakistan, this extraordinary generosity has seldom translated into sustained human, intellectual, or institutional development. The limitation is not a deficit of compassion, but a question of orientation. Less than one percent of philanthropic giving is directed toward higher education, despite its foundational role in cultivating knowledge, leadership, and long-term societal advancement.
Habib University’s Reshaping Philanthropy in the Islamic World Lecture Series interrogates this disconnect, exploring how Islamic traditions of giving can be recalibrated toward enduring institutions of knowledge.
By shifting philanthropy beyond immediate relief toward generational transformation, the series positions education not merely as a charitable cause, but as a profound moral and social investment for our time
In this lecture, Dr. Joseph E. B. Lumbard critiques the fragmentation of modern academia and turns to Islamic intellectual history as an alternative model of education—one aimed at forming ethically and intellectually integrated human beings rather than narrow specialists. He explores how Islamic traditions sustained an ecology of learning in which theology, philosophy, law, and the sciences informed one another.
Dr. Lumbard also highlights the role of Islamic philanthropic institutions, particularly waqf, in sustaining this integrated knowledge system. These institutions provided independence, continuity, and intellectual plurality across generations. Together, integrated knowledge and philanthropic institution-building offer a compelling vision for rethinking higher education in service of human flourishing.
Read About Speaker
Dr. Joseph E. B. Lumbard is an American Muslim scholar and Associate Professor of Quranic Studies at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar. His scholarship spans Quranic studies, Sufism, Islamic philosophy, comparative theology, and Islamic ecotheology.
Dr. Lumbard previously taught at the American University in Cairo, Brandeis University and the American University of Sharjah. He also served as Advisor for Interfaith Affairs to the Jordanian Royal Court under King Abdullah II.
He encountered Islam while a student at George Washington University and embraced it, saying: “I realized that everything I had been searching for within Christianity was also available within Islam.”
