CHARITY SHOULD BEGIN AT HOME

There was a lot of uncoerced charity in its nontax version among the Arabs of pre-Muhammad days.  For example, the Arabs of that time would take their camels to a pond every six or seven days and there milk them and distribute the milk among the needy (note 1329).

Muhammad�s response to this generosity was positive.  But he taught, and in some ways wisely, that charity should begin at home.  This point is brought out in many ahAdIs (2183-2195).  The order in which one should spend his wealth is this: First on one�s own self, then on one�s wife and children, then on relatives and friends, and then on other good deeds.

Following a common practice, an Arab once willed that his slave was to be freed after his death.  When Muhammad heard this, he called him and asked him if he had any other property.  The man replied no.  Muhammad then sold the slave for 800 dirhams, gave the money to the owner, and told him: �Start with your own self and spend it on yourself, and if anything is left, it should be spent on your family, and if anything is left it should be spent on your relatives.�

There is another story that makes the same point.  A lady set her slave-girl free.  When informed about it, Muhammad told her: �Had you given her to your maternal uncle, you would have a greater reward� (2187).

So the morality that Muhammad taught on the question was not particularly heroic, but it agrees with the general practice.  Nor was it really revolutionary.  The emancipation of slaves was not a matter of justice but only of charity.  And even then it should not conflict with the well-being of the family of the believer.

author : ram swarup

AN UNPOPULAR TAX

There is an interesting hadIs which shows that the zakAt tax was unpopular even with the highest.  �Umar was appointed the collector.  When he reported that KhalId b. WalId (who later became a famous Muslim general) and even the Prophet�s own uncle, �AbbAs, had refused to pay the tax, Muhammad replied: �You are unjust to KhalId, for he reserved the armours and weapons for the sake of Allah; and as for �AbbAs, I shall be responsible. . . . �Umar, bear in mind, the uncle of a person is like his father� (2148).

The resentment against zakAt was general.  It was particularly strong among the non-Medinan Arab tribes, who shared the burden of the tax but not its benefits.  The Bedouins complained to the Prophet that the �collectors of Sadaqa come to us and treat us unjustly.  Upon this the Messenger of Allah said: Please your collectors� (2168).

But things were rougher and not as easily settled as this hadIs seems to suggest.  After the conquest of Mecca, when the power of Muhammad became supreme, the collection of the tithe became aggressive.  In the beginning of the ninth year of the Hijra (Hegira), parties of collectors were sent out in different directions to realize the tax from the KilAb, GhifAr, Aslam, FazAr, and several other tribes.  It seems that the opposition of a section of the tribe of Band TamIm to the collection was somewhat forceful.  So Muhammad sent a punitive force consisting of fifty Arab horsemen, who took the tribe by surprise and brought fifty men, women, and children back to Medina as hostages.  They had to be ransomed, and after this the tax collection became smoother.

The QurAn itself is an eloquent witness to the Arab resentment against the tax.  Allah warns Muhammad: �Some of desert Arabs look upon their payments as a fine, and they wait a turn of fortune against you; but against them shall a turn of evil fortune be; for God both hears and knows� (9:98).

In fact, the resentment was so great that as soon as Muhammad died, the Arab tribes rose in revolt against the infant Muslim state and had to be reconquered.  Their opposition ceased only when they became partners in the growing Muslim imperialism and their zakAt obligation was drowned in the immense gains derived from military conquests and colonization abroad.

author : ram swarup

EXEMPTIONS AND INCENTIVES

There was a lower exemption limit.  �No Sadaqa [zakAt] is payable on five wasqs of dates or grain [1 wasq = about 425 pounds], on less than five camel heads and on less than five uqiyas of silver [1 uqiya = about 10 tons, or ¼ pound]� (2134).  Also, �No Sadaqa is due from a Muslim on his slave or horse� (2144).  There was no tax on horses meant for use in a jihAd.  �The horse which is used for riding in jihAd is exempted from the payment of zakAt� (note 1313).

author : ram swarup

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