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