MUHAMMAD RUFFLED

According to another tradition, Muhammad gave a hundred camels each to AbU SufyAn, SafwAn, �Uyaina, and Aqra, but less than his share to �AbbAs b. MirdAs.  �AbbAs told Muhammad: �I am in no way inferior to anyone of these persons.  And he who is let down today would not be elevated.� Then Muhammad �completed one hundred camels for him� (2310).

In other cases when similar complaints were made, Muhammad could not always keep his temper.  One man complained that �this is a distribution in which the pleasure of Allah has not been sought.� On hearing this, Muhammad �was deeply angry . . . and his face became red�; he found comfort in the fact that �Moses was tormented more than this, but he showed patience� (2315).

author : ram swarup

PACIFICATION

But this course was not without its problems.  It created quite a lot of dissatisfaction among some of his old supporters, and Muhammad had to use all his powers of diplomacy and flattery to pacify them.  �Don�t you feel delighted that [other] people should go with riches, and you should go back with the Apostle of Allah,� he told the ansArs with great success when, after the conquest of Mecca, they complained about the unjust distribution of the spoils.  They had grumbled: �It is strange that our swords are dripping with their blood, whereas our spoils have been given to them [the Quraish]� (2307).

Muhammad added other words of flattery and told the ansArs that they were his �inner garments� (i.e., were closer to him), while the Quraish, who had received the spoils, were merely his �outer garments.� To cajolery, he added theology, telling them that they �should show patience till they meet him at Hauz Kausar, � a canal in heaven (2313).  The ansArs were happy.

author : ram swarup

GAINING HEARTS� BY GIVING GIFTS

The principle of distribution was not always based on need, justice, or merit.  Muhammad had other considerations as well.  �I give [at times material gifts] to persons who were quite recently in the state of unbelief, so that I may incline them to truth,� says Muhammad (2303).

To gain hearts (mullafa qulUbhum) for Islam with the help of gifts is considered impeccable behavior, in perfect accord with QurAnic teaching (9:60).  Muhammad made effective use of gifts as a means of winning people over to Islam.  He would reward new converts generously but overlook the claims of Muslims of long standing.  Sa�d reports that �the Messenger of Allah bestowed gifts upon a group of people. . . . He however left a person and did not give him anything and he seemed to me the most excellent among them.� Sa�d drew the Prophet�s attention to this believing Muslim, but Muhammad replied: �He may be a Muslim.  I often bestow something on a person, whereas someone else is dearer to me than he, because of the fear that he [the former] may fall headlong into the fire� (2300), that is, he may give up Islam and go back to his old religion.  The translator and commentator makes the point very clear by saying that it was �with a view to bringing him nearer and making him feel at home in the Muslim society that material gifts were conferred upon him by the Holy Prophet� (note 1421).

There are other instances of the same type.  �Abdullah b. Zaid reports that �when the Messenger of Allah conquered Hunain he distributed the booty, and he bestowed upon those whose hearts it was intended to win� (2313).  He bestowed costly gifts on the Quraish and Bedouin chiefs, many of them his enemies only a few weeks before.  Traditions have preserved the names of some of these elite beneficiaries, like AbU SufyAn b. Harb, SafwAn b. Umayya, �Uyaina b. Hisn, Aqra� b. HAbis, and �Alqama b. Ulasa (2303-2314).  They received a hundred camels each from the booty.

Muhammad did the same with the booty of some gold sent by �AlI b. AbU TAlib from Yemen.  He distributed it among four men: �Uyaina, Aqra, Zaid al-Khail, �and the fourth one was either �Alqama b. �UlAsa or Amir b. Tufail� (2319).

author : ram swarup

DISSATISFACTION

Most of the properties abandoned by the BanU NazIr were appropriated by Muhammad for himself and his family.  Other funds at his disposal for distribution were also increasing.  This new money was hardly zakAt money but war booty.  Its distribution created a lot of heart-rending among his followers.  Many of them thought they deserved more-or at any rate that others deserved less-than they got.  Muhammad had to exercise considerable diplomacy, combined with threats, both mundane and celestial.

author : ram swarup

WAR BOOTY

Within a very short period, zakAt became secondary, and war spoils became the primary source of revenue of the Muslim treasury.  In fact, the distinction between the two was soon lost, and thus the �Book of ZakAt� imperceptibly becomes a book on war spoils.

Khums, the one-fifth portion of the spoils of war which goes to the treasury, has two aspects.  On the one hand, it is still war booty; but on the other, it is zakAt.  When it is acquired, it is war booty; when it is distributed among the ummah, it is zakAt.

Muhammad regards war booty as something especially his own.  �The spoils of war are for Allah and His Messenger�(QurAn 8:1).  They are put in his hands by Allah to be spent as he thinks best, whether as zakAt for the poor, or as gifts for his Companions, or as bribes to incline the polytheists to Islam, or on the �Path of Allah,� i.e., on preparations for armed raids and battles against the polytheists.

�Abd al-Muttalib and Fazl b. �AbbAs, two young men belonging to Muhammad�s family, wanted to become collectors of zakAt in order to secure means of marrying.  They went to Muhammad with their request, but he replied: �It does not become the family of Muhammad to accept Sadaqa for they are the impurities of the people.� But he arranged marriages for the two men and told his treasurer: �Pay so much Mahr [dowry] on behalf of both of them from the khums� (2347).

author : ram swarup