Zakat: The One Who Takes

Imagine a beautiful garden with plants and flowers. It is essential to remove weeds for the garden to thrive. This is the original meaning of the word zakat. This is the fourth in a series of articles on Understanding Zakat: Practical Guidance on the Wisdom, Rules, and Etiquette of Giving Zakat.

One of the benefits of Zakat for the recipients is that it liberates them from need. When you liberate someone from need, you make him worship Allah without problems and worries. A heart and a mind that thinks about money, want, and need, will never worship Allah with clarity.

Freeing Someone from Need

In third world countries, where people have to run day and night to earn their living. They have no time to read a word. We are blessed to have time for litanies, gatherings of knowledge, and remembrance. Sometimes, you may be so close to something but because life is so tough and hectic, you do not feel the beauty. By freeing the person from want and from need, you are dedicating him to worship Allah. 

The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) reportedly sought refuge from poverty. Our master Ali reportedly said, “If poverty was a man, I would have killed him.” A great deal of scholars said a grateful rich person is better than a patient poor person. However, Ibn Ata’illah holds that the one who is poor and patient is better than the one who is rich and grateful because “Poverty is your quality and wealth is His attribute.” Allah says:

وَوَجَدَكَ عَآئِلًۭا فَأَغْنَىٰ

“And find you impoverished, then well suffice?” [Quran, 93:8; tr. Keller, Quran Beheld]

What Charity Is

The Companions realized that the one who has money has a lot of access to reward. In the famous hadith some people from among the Companions of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said to the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), “O Messenger of Allah, the affluent have made off with the rewards. They pray as we pray. They fast as we fast. And they give [much] in charity by virtue of their wealth.”

He (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said, “Has not Allah made things for you to give in charity? Truly every tasbihah [saying: subhan-Allah] is a charity. And every takbirah [saying: Allahu akbar] is a charity. Every tahmidah [saying: al-hamdu lillah] is a charity. And every tahlilah [saying: la ilaha ill’ Allah] is a charity.

And commanding the good is a charity. Forbidding an evil is a charity. In the bud‘i [sexual act] of each one of you there is a charity.” They said, “O Messenger of Allah, when one of us fulfils his carnal desire will he have some reward for that?” He (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said, “Do you not see that if he were to act upon it [his desire] in an unlawful manner then he would be deserving of punishment? Likewise, if he were to act upon it in a lawful manner then he will be deserving of a reward.”

Endowments and Empowerment

Abu Huraira narrated that the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace) said: “There is no favor due upon us from anyone, except that we have repaid him, with the exception of Abu Bakr. Verily, upon us there is a favor due to him which Allah will repay him on the Day of Judgement. No one’s wealth has benefited me as Abu Bakr’s wealth has benefited me. Were to take a Khalil, then I would have taken Abu Bakr as a Khalil. Indeed your Companion is Allah’s Khalil.” 

Our master Uthman prepared the whole army. Money is crucial. It saves the nation and the whole society. How much have we benefited from many endowments established by people who had the means to save the students of knowledge, enabling them to study and to dedicate themselves? How much can money, if channelled in the right way, save many young people from falling in fornication by marrying them off? 

It is mentioned that ten things will never stop generating reward for a human being. One of them is building a place for the remembrance of Allah. 

Zakat empowers the poor and the needy to engage with the society. They will not feel that no one cares about them. They will not have a grudge or harbor any grudge. Zakat money saves the whole nation. It saves the one who gives it and it saves the one who receives it. It generates job opportunities for the poor and the needy and it makes the society feel solid in the face of any external attack.