“He who eats and drinks whilst his brother goes hungry is not from one of us.” (Bukhari)
Sadqah is also known as a Muslim teaching which is giving money to charity. Sadqah is under a lot of forms, from which one is known as sadqah-e-jariah, which is giving money to help a businessperson for a successful business or helping the people for their scholarship, and it is an obligatory, which is not compulsory, and you do not have to pay. Another type of Sadqah is Sadaqah-e-Fitr which is compulsory to give after Ramadan for any mistakes you had done whilst you were in a fasting form. Every good act is known as Sadqah, even smiling to your brother is charity and it also wipes out your sins. The only difference between Sadqah and Zakah is that Zakah is giving a fix amount of money or any thing similar to money once a year.
If a person fails to pay zakah then this person is retaining something, which does not belong to him/herself. This is because zakah is a right for the poor and the needy that must be distributed. This also means that the illegal retained amount makes the income of a person poisoned and endangered.
Due to the payment of zakah, the rich share their wealth with the poor, thus the poor who are suffering around the world, get to share the enjoyment of life, just like the rich do. Islam teaches us to look after people who are less fortunate, in fact, our wealth and we belong to Allah. He is the owner of every thing, and we are the trustees of his wealth.
Below is a table to illustrate how much zakah each mature person should give:
The Need for World Development
Between the duration of 1950 to 1985, it was very common for people to talk of the poor countries as `Third World` countries. This was because some people thought that they were really rich and wealthy and they thought others were not so rich but not so poor either and the others were just poor. Due to this people divided the world into three different parts:
-
First World - the West (USA, Canada, New Zealand, Western Europe, Japan, Australia) Very rich countries with oil, money and proper housing;
-
Second World - the communist countries (USSR, China, Eastern Europe). These were once regarded as poorer than the West, but richer than the rest of the world;
-
Third World - all the other countries, which were once regarded as the poorest countries in the world. These countries lack of food, lack of water, there is no proper housing and there are various types of diseases such as Malaria.
Now more recently, time has changed and some countries, which were once regarded as poor, are now even richer than the countries, which were regarded as rich, such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Brazil, Brunei, Singapore and Kuwait. These countries have found oil and other natural resources such as diamonds, crops, minerals and Gold. Brazil have a large economy of producing crops and a vast amount of beef which gets delivered internationally all around the world to famous places such as KFC, McDonalds and Burger King, so due to this, their financial problems could have been paid off.
Some countries are not as rich as the West, but are no longer poverty-stricken. So now, in modern terms, people divide the world into three completely different parts.
-
Developed countries – rich countries like Western Europe and USA. They have military power and also have a vast amount of industrial economy;
-
Developing countries – countries which are slowly but surely becoming richer like Mexico, Brazil and Malaysia;
-
Less developed countries – Countries that are still very poor and have people starving like Mali, Sudan and Bangladesh. These countries still lack of water and food.
Reasons for lack of development
There are many reasons for the LCD’s to be less developed. I will mention those reasons in the following paragraphs.
Wars
Most LCD’s have been terribly affected by war. Countries that have been rich previously, may have been badly affected by wars, and due to the vast amount of war damage and losses caused, they may have got bankrupt and have had to lose all their money and businesses like Africa and Somalia. In Africa, many civil wars were fought between people who lived in the same country.
Cash crops
The only way most LCD’s can survive , provide themselves with food and pay their debts off, is by producing cash crops(crops grown for sale rather than consumption).Coffee, coco beans, tea, cotton and tobacco are all types of cash crops which are all grown to sell to the developed world. However, the disadvantage of cash crops is that many people starve because the land is used to grow the crops instead of the food.
Debt
Most LCD’s Have to borrow money from the banks of the developed countries to survive and begin to develop. However, the catch is that the developed countries charge interest. So basically, the countries end up paying more in interest than they earn in foreign currency.
A typical example is when Chile borrowed $3.9 billion. By 1982, she had paid $12.8 billion in interest, but still owed money!
This money wasted in paying up interest could have been used to speed up Chile’s development; instead it went to countries that are already rich.
Natural disasters
Most LCD’s are situated in areas of the world were natural disasters (floods, droughts, earthquakes, hurricanes etc). An earthquake for example can destroy thousands of houses and leave many poor people homeless.
Crops cannot grow without rain, and the people are not able to afford sink wells, install pumps and organise an irrigation system.
There are also other factors contributing towards world poverty: lack of clean fresh water, lack of education, dreadful diseases, low life expectancy leading to large numbers of children, relying on one export (e.g. copper or oil) whose value may go down in the world market changing a country from rich to poor almost overnight.
Analyse and explain the work of one Muslim agency working for world development
Islamic Relief are an international relief agency working towards alleviating poverty in the world. Islamic relief is committed to help those in real need. As an organisation they do not get involved in political divisions or support directly or indirectly political activities of any sort. The type of programs they do is orphan programs. The prophet (s.a.w) has said that
“I and the person who raises an orphan will be like these two in paradise”
(Putting his index and middle finger together).
(Hadith)
Islamic relief provide the poor countries with lots of money. But the only way they can achieve this is by asking people to donate towards their funds throughout the year. They also hand out leaflets at mosques and conferences etc to advertise their holy charity internationally, with the intentions that the rich citizens of the west may share their earning and profits with the poor, and educate one child whose family is desperately in need of money.
People, who are willing to give money towards this fund, can do so but only if they have the right intention, which is that they are participating only to please Allah and not so that people within there surrounding call them rich or anything similar. It is said in one of the hadith’s of the prophet (s.a.w) that
“All actions are governed by intentions.”
So the person who donates with the wrong intention is not only fooling himself, he is also attempting to fool Allah. In addition, people can donate in many ways from which one of the ways is to give old clothes or things similar to places such, clothing banks which you can find in most Mosque car parks. The people can also donate their money generously; they can also give useful items such as old school bags, shoes, used tools etc.
With all these things, the poor people of the LCD’s will be very happy, as it will be like a new life and that there supplications accepted. With the vast amount of money donated towards the fund, Islamic relief provide money for the education of thousands of poor children, they give gifts to children on special occasions, and they also feed thousands of poor people.
Section B
“There should be no rich people as long as there is poverty in the world”
I personally disagree to the statement above, but there are people in the world who agree and they base the opinions on the fact that everyone is equal in front of Allah, so then why is there a need for people to be rich or poor. They also say that having a lot of wealth will not do you any good in this world as everyone is only here for a short period of time. In addition, they say that every living person on this earth was created just to worship Allah, so then where is there a need of having wealth in this situation. Finally they say having wealth is just a test from Allah to see whether the money is being spent in the right manner, and so if this is the case then it is better being poor so that you cannot be judged on how you spent your wealth.
The reason why I disagree to the above statement is because wealth is a blessing from Allah, so Allah chooses who he wants to give wealth and who he does not wish to give wealth to. I also disagree due to the fact that if there would be no rich people in this world then zakah cannot be paid. As this is necessary upon every living Muslim, how is one going to pay if there is nothing to give. Another reason why I disagree to the statement is because the rich helping the poor will not put an end to poverty due to the fact that poverty is a test from Allah. As mentioned earlier, poverty is a test from Allah in which Allah tests one’s perseverance in the hour of need. It wrings out the true colours of man and, thus, his levels of patience and complacence can be seen. My final point in disagreeing is because none other than Allah can stop poverty as this will be a test till the day of judgement, which is when the righteous of all people will be rewarded.