USES OF ZAKAT FUNDS

According to the QurAn, the zakAt funds are meant for �the poor and the paupers [fuqarA and miskIn], for those in bondage and debt, and for the wayfarers.� All these are conventional recipients of charity.  The funds are also to be used for the �bureaucracy,� those who collect and administer the funds.  But two other items are also mentioned which deserve special attention.  The funds are to be used in �the service of Allah� (fIsabIli�llIAh) and for �gaining over [or reconciling, or inclining] the hearts [muallafa qulUbuhum]� to Islam (QurAn 9:60).

In the technical vocabulary of Islam, the first phrase, �in the service, or way, of Allah,� means religious warfare, or jihAd.  ZakAt funds are to be spent on buying arms, equipment, and horses.  The second phrase, �gaining over, or reconciling, hearts,� means �bribes� in unadorned language.  The faith of new converts should be strengthened with the help of generous �gifts,� and that of adversaries should be subverted by the same means.  This was an important limb of the Prophet�s religious offensive and diplomacy, and as the QurAnic verse shows, it had for the Prophet, as it still has for his followers, a heavenly sanction.

author : ram swarup

The fifth book is on al-zakAt (charity or poor tax).  Every society preaches and to some extent practices charity toward its less-fortunate brothers.  Muhammad too stresses the importance of charity, or zakAt, an old Arab practice.  But with him it became a tax, an obligatory payment made by the Muslims to the new state that was forming, and to be spent by its representatives.  In this form, those who paid zakAt were resentful, and those who spent it actually acquired a new source of power and patronage.

Much of the �Book of ZakAt� is concerned with the question of power.  In the beginning, Muhammad had many followers who were needy, and most of them, being migrants, depended a great deal on the goodwill and charity of the people of Medina.  Perhaps the rhetoric on charity emanates largely from this situation.  There was as yet no universal fellowship as such for a brother in distress, no sense of a larger human brotherhood.  ZakAt was solely meant for the brothers in faith, and everyone else was excluded on principle.  This has been the Muslim practice ever since.

author : ram swarup

MUHAMMAD AND HIS MOTHER

Muhammad tells us: �I sought [Allah�s] permission to beg forgiveness for my mother, but He did not grant it to me.  I sought permission from Him to visit her grave, and He granted it to me� (2129).  This was a fine gesture on Muhammad�s part after sending his mother to hell in fulfillment of the demand for theological consistency.

author : ram swarup

WEEPING OVER THE DEAD

Muhammad discouraged weeping over the dead: �The dead is punished because of his family�s weeping over it� (2015).  He also taught haste in the disposal of dead bodies.  �If the dead person was good, it is a good state to which you are sending him on: but if he was otherwise it is an evil of which you are ridding yourself� (2059).

Muhammad himself wept over the death of his loyal followers.  Weeping over the dying Sa�d b. UbAda, he said: �Allah does not punish for the tears that the eye sheds or the grief the heart feels, but He punishes for this [pointing to his tongue], meaning loud lamenting� (2010).  Muhammad also sobbed aloud, according to certain traditions, over his expiring child, who was only eighteen months old.  His followers tried to comfort him by reminding him of his own exhortation not to weep.  Muhammad replied: �It is not this that I forbade, but loud wailing and false laudation of the dead.�

author : ram swarup

PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD

There are also prayers for the dead and the dying.  The dying must be treated to a bit of theology.  �Exhort to recite, �There is no god but Allah,� to those who are dying,� says the Prophet (1996).

When you visit the sick or the dead, supplicate for good, because �angels may say amen to whatever you say.� Umm Salama tells us: �When AbU Salama died, I went to the Apostle of Allah and said: Messenger of Allah, AbU Salama has died.  He told me to recite: �O Allah! forgive me and him [AbU Salama] and give me a better substitute than he.� So I said this, and Allah gave me in exchange Muhammad, who is better for me than him [AbU Salama]� (2002).

Umm Salama was the widow of AbU Salama, to whom she had borne many children.  He died at Uhud, and Muhammad married her four months later.

author : ram swarup

PRAYERS FOR DIFFERENT OCCASIONS

There are prayers for rain, prayers for protection against windstorms or terrible dark clouds, prayers to be recited at the time of a solar eclipse (1966-1972).  However, Muhammad had no friendly eye for nature.  He regarded clouds and winds with terror.  �When there was on any day windstorm or dark cloud its effect could be read on the face of the Messenger of Allah, and he moved forward and backward in a state of anxiety,�  �Aisha tells us.  She further says: �I asked him the reason of this anxiety and he said: I was afraid that it might be a calamity that might fall on my Ummah� (1961).

Muhammad deals with the problem with the help of an incantation.  �Aisha tells us: �Whenever the wind was stormy, the Apostle of Allah used to say: O Allah! I ask Thee for what is good in it, and the good which it contains, and the good of that which it was sent for. I seek refuge with Thee from what is evil in it, what evil it contains, and the evil of that what it was sent for� (1962).

author : ram swarup

PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD

There are also prayers for the dead and the dying.  The dying must be treated to a bit of theology.  �Exhort to recite, �There is no god but Allah,� to those who are dying,� says the Prophet (1996).

When you visit the sick or the dead, supplicate for good, because �angels may say amen to whatever you say.� Umm Salama tells us: �When AbU Salama died, I went to the Apostle of Allah and said: Messenger of Allah, AbU Salama has died.  He told me to recite: �O Allah! forgive me and him [AbU Salama] and give me a better substitute than he.� So I said this, and Allah gave me in exchange Muhammad, who is better for me than him [AbU Salama]� (2002).

Umm Salama was the widow of AbU Salama, to whom she had borne many children.  He died at Uhud, and Muhammad married her four months later.

author: ram swarup

MUSIC, DANCE, AND SPORTS

�Aisha reports: �The Messenger of Allah came in my apartment while there were two girls with me singing the song of the Battle of Bu�As.  He lay down on the bed and turned away his face.  Then came AbU Bakr and he scolded me and said: Oh! this musical instrument of the devil in the house of the Messenger of Allah.  The Messenger of Allah turned towards him and said: Leave them alone.  And when he became unattentive I hinted them [the girls] and they went out, and it was the day of Id� (1942).  Muhammad added: �AbU Bakr, every people have a festival and it is our festival [so let them play on]� (1938).

This is the only hadIs that can be construed as an instance of Muhammad�s approving of music.  In a large measure he was indulging his child-wife �Aisha, but the sufi schools of Islam, in which music plays an important role, make the most of this hadIs.

On the same occasion, Muhammad, with �Aisha�s head resting on his shoulder, was watching some Abyssinians engage in a mock armed fight.  �Umar came and wanted to drive them away by throwing pebbles at them.  But Muhammad told him: � �Umar, leave them alone� (1946).

author : ram swarup