Muslim Arab Beneficence at a Hemispheric Crossroads of Exceptional Rule

Divided into two parts, this article first locates Muslim Arabs at the tri-border during authoritarian military rule in Brazil (1964-1985), Paraguay (1955-1989), and Argentina (1976-1980). Between the 1950s and 1980s, I show that Muslim Arab tradersinitiated charity and community work amid the liberal exceptions made by illiberal regimes. From the 1990s to the 2010s, the second part of the article turns to the counterterrorist liaisons of democratically elected governments that targeted Muslim Arab beneficence. With the near erasure of their history, Muslim Arabs became potential terrorist financiers amid the illiberal exceptions of ostensible liberal regimes. Put together, this article's two parts reveal the transformation of Muslim Arabs from local benefactors into foreign suspects, neither fully absolved nor formally incriminated, in a still unfinished hemispheric history of exceptional rule.