Zakaat and Social Welfare; Other economic institutions; Educational Institutions; Collective Obligations
The Muslim community is a practical and caring
community. It recognizes the value of material well-being and the fact that
people naturally stand in need of one another. The major instrument for
ensuring a caring and healthy community is the institution of Zakaat.
For as long as humans are humans, who have
differing capacities and motivations fro economic action, there will be some
who are poor. Indeed the majority of humankind are now
afflicted by poverty. Every human being carries the Divine amaanah or trust to transform
the elements of nature into sources of nutrition and comfort, of wisdom and
beauty, efficiency and enjoyment for himself and
others.
Built into this amaanah
or trust is the requirement on those who have been blessed with wealth and
means, to spend out of their substance on those in deprivation and misery.
Islam teaches people that the poor and the deprived have a ‘title’ and ‘right’
in the wealth of the rich (70: 24-25) and constantly exhorts the rich to meet
that obligation. In the sense, the rich stand in need of the poor. If they do
not fulfill this ‘right’ of the poor, they sill be called to account.
While voluntary sadaqah
or charity is encouraged and its scope extended so that even the poor can offer
sadaqah (in the shape of a smile for example). Islam
has established the institution of Zakaat to make
concern for the poor a permanent and compulsory duty.
Zakaat consists of an annual
contribution of two and a half percent of one’s income or ‘appropriated wealth’
to public welfare. The rate of Zakaat on other types
of wealth such as agricultural product and jewelry is more. It is incumbent on
minors and adults, males and females, living or dead. After debts, zakaat is deducted from the inheritance of any deceased
Muslim.
‘Appropriated wealth’ excludes debts and
liabilities, household effects (except jewelry) required for living, and land,
buildings, and capital materials used in or for production. Zakaat
is due on current year’s income as well as on the accumulated incomes of the
past and on all stocks in trade.
Islamic law empowers the Islamic state or
community to collect the zakaat, and keep a distinct
account of it, separate from the public funds of the state treasury.
Zakaat funds must be spent on
the eight categories specified in the Qur’an, namely,
the poor and the destitute, the wayfarer, the bankrupt, the needy converts, the
captives, the collectors of zakaat, and in the cause
of God. The last category allows zakaat funds to be
used for the general welfare of the community – for education of the people,
for public works, and for defense of Islam and the Muslim community.
Benefits of zakaat
1. Being a
religious duty, it offers the donor the inner satisfaction of a duty
accomplished. The funds on which zakaat has been paid
bring satisfaction and reward in this world and the next; funds on which no zakaat has been paid will bring suffering and punishment in
this world and the hereafter. The very word zakaat
means, ‘sweetening’ and it implies that those funds on which no zakaat has been paid are ‘bitter’. The word zakaat also means purifying.
2. Zakaat makes for social welfare
and solidarity and eliminates class and economic barriers, class animosity and
hatreds; it eliminates arrogance on the part of the giver and humiliation on
the part of the receiver.
3. The need to
pay Zakaat acts as a stimulus to investment of income
in productive enterprise, for capital that is allowed to remain idle would
progressively diminish in zakaat levies. Invested in
production, it adds to society’s wealth and could help in job creation. Zakaat also has the basic meaning ‘to grow’: wealth grows
with spending and investment.
4. Zakaat is a great promoter of
wealth circulation throughout society, which is one of the main features of any
healthy economy. The Qur’an condemns the accumulation
and circulation of wealth in the hands of the rich only. (top)
Zakaat is only the minimum
contribution to social welfare in a community. There are other economic institutions
that s society would need to develop to preserve its strength and integrity.
A Muslim community needs
to have its own institutions for banking and finance, for thrift and insurance,
its own investment and consumer priorities that would be in conformity with the
moral and legal code of Islam. This requires new thinking and new initiatives.
This is within the reach of any community beginning with small-scale projects
and starting from the bottom up.
Muslim communities and
societies need to have economic polities that would meet the basic needs of the
people, change consumer tastes and levels so that people can live within their
means specially considering the saying of the Prophet that ‘the little but
sufficient is better than the abundant but alluring’. Muslim communities need
to be wary of the debt trap through which the energies and resources of a
people are mortgaged to international banking institutions. The level of debt
from loans and interest remains one of the major sources of impoverishment of
many societies. (top)
Educational institutions
in many existing Muslim communities often produce timid and imitative people
who are not able to contribute to the welfare and strength of society.
Muslims of today need
educational institutions that would produce courageous, enterprising, and
creative men and women who aim at ihsaan or excellence in all things, and who are able to
contribute to the welfare and strength of society. Muslim communities need an
education and an outlook that will not make them accept humiliation and
oppression. This was the type of education and training that the Sahabah received in the
‘continuous education school’ of the noble Prophet. The focus of this education was nor fine buildings and expensive equipment but
the human mind, heart and body. (top)
While the individual
Muslim has the duty to acquire such knowledge as to enable him or her to perform
personal obligations such as knowledge of Salaat and
the rules of fasting, the community has the collective obligation to ensure
that it has the knowledge and skills to meet its essential needs and supplies.
The Islamic community
needs for example to promote the industry of certain individuals in farming,
weaving and building for people cannot go without food to eat, clothes to wear
and dwellings to live in. It is amazing how this simple rule is neglected by
many societies who have abandoned agriculture for large-scale industrial
development. This has resulted in dependency on outside sources for food. In
crisis situations, this has led to starvation, suffering and death and the
ransoming of large populations to outside forces.
The study of the Shari’ah is a collective duty since knowledge of it is a
prerequisite for enjoining the good and forbidding the bad which is the purpose
of the Islamic society or state.
Jihaad is a collective duty,
and each community needs to train and equip itself to defend itself against
aggression and to protect the freedom of mankind. The concept of fard kifayah thus imposes on the
community the need to assess its essential needs, plan for the fulfillment of
these needs through training of individuals and the allocation of resources to
encourage agriculture, industries and institutions to cater for these needs.
These are some of the
aspects of community formation and concerns in an Islamic system. It would be
seen that the Islamic system does not encourage selfish and destructive
individualism. Neither does it stand for rigid collectivization and control
from above. It is a society of the middle way where individual freedoms are
enjoyed within a guided and disciplined, caring and creative society. (top)