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THE PLACE OF ' ZAKAT ' IN COLLECTIVE LIFE
Brethren-in-Islam !
In my two previous discourses I have explained to you the real position
of Zakat. Now I shall throw light on another aspect of it.
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At several places in the Holy Qur'an the phrase Infaq fi sabilillah has
been used for Zakat and Sadaqaat. It means "spending in the cause of Allah". At
some places it has been said that whatever you spend in the cause of Allah is a nice loan
repayable by Him. This implies that you have advanced a loan to Allah and He has become
your debtor. At numerous places in the Qur'an it has also been stated that whatever you
spend for the cause of Allah, its reward is incumbent on Him and that He will not only
repay in equal measure but to a much greater degree. Please think over this point. Is the
Lord of the earth and heaven, Nauzubillah (may God forgive) your dependant? Is that
Supreme Being in need of loan from you? (May God forgive) How can it be? It is on His
largess alone that your life is being sustained. It is the food given by Him that you eat.
Whatever the rich and the poor among you possess, all is a gift from Him only. From a
destitute to a millionaire and a multimillionaire, everybody among you is His dependant
but He is not a dependant of anybody. What need can He have to ask for loan from you and
stretch out His hand before you? The fact of the matter is that this is all due to spend
for your benefit, for your own good and for your own work, yet He says: " This
expenditure is made in My cause, it is a debt to Me, I owe you its reward and I accept it
as an obligation to Me. When you give it to the poor and the destitute of your community,
from where can these wretches recompense you for it ? I will do it on their behalf. You
render help to your poor relatives. Its obligation is not on them but on Me. I will
recompense you for this favour. Whatever you give to the orphans, widows, disabled folk,
wayfarers among you and to your brethren in distress, enter it in My account. Your claim
for repayments is not against them but against Me, and I will fulfil it. You should give
loan to your distressed brethren but should not demand interest from them. Do not worry
them. If they are unable to pay back, do not have them sent to civil jail. Do not have
their clothes and utensils sold out. Do not make their wives and children homeless by
depriving them of their dwelling. Your debt is not owed by them but by Me. If they return
the capital I will pay interest on it, if they cannot give back even the capital, I will
pay you both capital and interest. Similarly, whatever you spend for the work of your
collective welfare, for the good and betterment of your fellow-beings, though it will
benefit you also, yet it will be a favour to Me. I will return every single pie of it to
you along with the profit".
This is the attribute of the most Beneficent, the Monarch of monarchs.
All that you possess is a gift from Him only. You do not get it from anywhere else. You
receive it from His treasures only. And then whatever you give, you do not give it to Him
but to your own relatives, your own folk, members of your own community, or you spend it
on your collective well-being whose benefit reaches you ultimately. But look at that
Supreme Beneficent Being that in regard to the wealth you take from Him and give it to
your own people, He says :
" You have given it to Me. I will give its reward to you."
Allah-o-Akbar ! To the Lord of the world alone befits this attribute of beneficence. It
behooves that Independent Monarch only to manifest the highest possible excellence of
generosity and beneficence. No human being can even conceive of such a lofty attitude.
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Now ponder over this point that why Allah has adopted this method to
arouse in man the spirit of beneficence and generosity? The more you think over this
problem the more you will get an insight into the pure quality of Islamic teaching, and
your heart will increasingly testify that such a superb type of inculcation can emanate
only from God and from no one else.
You know that man by his very nature is inclined to be unjust and
foolish. His perception is narrow. He cannot look very far. He is short sighted. Too big
and lofty ideas can hardly find place in his mind. He happens to be selfish, and his brain
cannot entertain a wide conception even of selfish interest. He is also hasty.
" Man is made of haste."
(Al-Qur'an 21:37)
He wants to see quickly the result and benefit of everything he does,
and only that result and benefit are substantial to him which he gains quickly and which
he sees in visible form. His vision fails to envisage far-reaching results. He can hardly
comprehend those benefits which take place on large scale and whose range extends over a
long period. In fact, in most cases these potentialities are not grasped at all. This is a
natural weakness of man compelling him to look for personal benefit in everything and that
too which is on a small scale, is quickly available and concretely felt by him. He
declaims "whatever I have earned or whatever I have inherited from my father and
grandfather belongs to me and nobody is a sharer in it. It must be spent exclusively on my
needs, on my desires, on my comfort and on my corporeal enjoyment. Or at least, it should
serve to raise my name, fame and honour. I should get some title, some high office, people
should bow before me and I should be talked about. If I do not achieve any of these
objectives, then why should I part with my money ? If any orphan is dying of hunger nearby
or if he is loafing about, why should I take care of him ? He has a claim over his father
who should have left something for his children or an insurance policy. If any widow in my
neighbourhood is passing her days in trouble, what is to me? Her husband ought to have
done something for her. If any wayfarer has lost his way, what has it to do with me? Why
did that fool come out of his house without making previous arrangement? If any body is in
distress, let him be so. God has given him also the same hands and feet as mine. He should
fulfil his own needs. Why should I help him? If I am to give him anything, it will be in
the form of loan and that too with interest because my money is not so useless. I would
have utilized it for building a house or for buying a car or for investment in a
profitable project. The borrower also earn some profit out of it. Then why should I not
take some portion from that profit.
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A wealthy man of this selfish mentality will first behave like a
serpent sitting on his treasure, and, secondly if at all he will spend anything, it will
be for his personal aggrandisement only. He will not spend a pie from his pocket, and if
at all he helped a poor man, unless there is some benefit in it, it will not be a sincere
type of help. He will, in fact, fleece that poor man and will realize from him
much more
than what he had given him. If he gives anything to a destitute he will take half his life
out of him by claiming to have showered thousands of favours on him and will insult and
humiliate him so much that no vestige of self-respect will be left in him. If he takes
part in some national work, he will first of all see to what extent he will be personally
benefited from it. All such works which will not bring him any personal gain will not
solicit his help.
What are the results of this mentality? Its results are fatal not only
for collective life but ultimately for that person himself, who due to narrow-mindedness
and ignorance, considers them beneficial. When such a mentality operates among a people,
wealth starts accumulating in a few hands and renders countless persons
resourceless. The
rich people continue to wring out money on the strength of their money and the life of
poor people becomes more and more hard every day. A poverty-stricken society breeds
various kinds of evils. The physical strength of its members declines. Diseases become
rampant. Their working capacity and productivity of wealth dwindles. Ignorance increases
among them. Their morals deteriorate. They take to crimes to satisfy their needs. And
ultimately, a position is reached when they resort to loot and plunder. Riots take place
on a wide-spread scale. Wealthy persons are murdered. Their houses are burnt and ransacked
and such a wholesale destruction takes place that no trace of the rich people is left in
the world.
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If you ponder you will come to know that in reality every single
person's welfare is bound up with the well-being of that community in whose sphere he
lives. If you help your brethren with the wealth you possess, then that wealth will
circulate and come back to you with many of its benefits, and if you by way of selfishness
keep it to yourself or spend it for your own personal benefit, it will ultimately get
reduced. For example, if you bring up an orphan child and after giving him education
enable him to become an earning member of the community, it will mean you have contributed
to the wealth of the community as a whole and you, being a member of it, will also
somehow become a sharer of that wealth though you may not be knowing that this share has reached
you through the ability of that particular orphan whom you had helped. But if due to
selfishness and narrow-mindedness you say: " Why should I help him? His father should
have left something for him", then he will loaf about and become a wash-out. He will
never develop the ability to contribute anything to the wealth of the community by his
labour. In fact, it will not be surprising if he becomes a professional criminal and
commits burglary in your own house. This would mean that by making a member of your
community a wash-out, a loafer and a criminal, you not only harmed him but harmed yourself
also. Taking an analogy from this very example if you cast a wide glance you will see that
one who spends money selflessly for the good of the community allows his wealth apparently
to go out of his pocket but, outside, it continues to expand and flourish till ultimately
it goes back with countless benefits to the pocket from which it once came out. And the
man who keeps money to himself due to selfishness and narrow-mindedness, and does not
spend it on the good of the community apparently preserves his wealth, increases it by
taking usury, but in reality decreases his wealth by his foolishness and works up his
destruction with his own hands. This is the secret which Allah has described thus:
"Allah has blighted usury and made almsgiving fruitful."
(Al-Qur'an 2:276)
" That which you give in usury in order that it may increase on
(other) people's property has not increase with Allah; but that which you give in charity,
seeking Allah's countenance, has increased manifold."
(Al-Qur'an 30:39)
But man's narrow-mindedness and ignorance prevent him from
comprehending this reality and from acting according to its spirit. He is a slave of
things of which he is materially conscious. He sees the money which jingles in his pocket.
The wealth that is increasingly registered in his cash book impresses him with its upward
trend but that which goes out of his hands cannot be seen by him as to where it is
increasing, how it is increasing, to what extent is it increasing and when will it come
back to him with profits and benefits. He only understands this much that so much money
has gone away from him and that too for good.
Till today man has not been able to unravel this knot of ignorance by
his own intelligence or effort. This is the condition everywhere in the world. On one side
is the domain of capitalist where all enterprises are run on usurious system, and where
troubles and worries are daily increasing in spite of heaps of wealth. On the other hand,
a group has emerged into being increasing adherents whose hearts are aflame with jealousy
and who, along with plundering the coffers of capitalist, is bent upon knocking down the
whole basis of human culture and civilization.
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This complicated situation has been resolved by that Sagacious and
Prudent Being the name of Whose Holy Book is Qur'an. Faith in Allah and faith in the Last
Day constitute the key to this lock. If a man affirms faith in Allah and realizes that the
real lord of the treasures of the earth and heaven is God, and the administration of human
affairs is in reality in the hands of God only, and with God is the account of even the
minutest atom, and the final reward and punishment of all good and bad deeds of man will
be awarded by Him in the Hereafter precisely according to computation, then it will become
quite easy for him to put trust in god instead of relying on his own view-point. He will
spend his wealth as directed by God leaving the question of profit and loss from it
entirely to Him. Whatever He will spend with this firm conviction, it will be in fact a
present to God Himself. Its account also will be entered in the cash book of God. Though
nobody may know in the world about his kind deeds, but God will certainly become aware of
it. And no matter if this favour of his is admitted by anybody or not, God will surely
know and acknowledge it. And when a promise of reward has been made by God, He will most
surely reward it either in the Hereafter or both in this world and the Hereafter.
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