أعوذ
بالله من
الشيطان
الرجيم
---- بسم
الله الرحمن
الرحيم
Payment of Zakaath.
Allaah has mentioned in Qur-aan about payment
of Zakaath, more than 30 times. There is a wide-spread belief among Muslims
that Allaah has not mentioned in Qur-aan, the quantum of Zakaath to be paid.
So our calculations for payment of Zakaath rely
entirely upon hadeeth. The rules for payment of Zakaath, under hadeeth, are
numerous. Therefore, in a Friday sermon, a khateeb (خطيب) spent nearly 30 minutes
explaining on what property the Zakaath is to be paid, which people are liable
to pay Zakaath and which people are eligible to receive it; the liability of
Zakaath on jewellery, agricultural income, vehicles, rented property, etc. At
the end, he said that the rules about Zakaath are so many that if he stood the
whole night explaining them, the matter would not be complete.
This did not deter me from continuing my search
in Qur-aan about the quantum of Zakaath to be paid. I was not satisfied with
the basic rule that we need to pay Zakaath to the extent of 1/40th
of our assets that exceed our needs, that too in excess of the value of a
specified weight of gold/silver and that too after a year has passed on the
amount.
First of all, we cannot define what an individual’s need is. Each
person has his own standard of living. One man’s luxury is another man’s
necessity.
One man suffers losses in his business year
after year and still has to pay Zakaath on his goods-in-trade that he owns and
on receivable amounts (which he may or may not receive), etc.
Another man earns a handsome salary, but
expends everything and keeps nothing in savings; so he stands exempted from
paying any Zakaath.
Natural justice is missing from this system
because it has deviated from our Creator’s scheme. So it is filled with imbalances, inequities and illogicalities,
One day, while reading the following verse of
Qur-aan, I felt the necessity to check all the meanings of the word غنمتم
(ghanimtum) which occurs in the verse.
The generally understood meaning of the word غنمتم - 'ghanimtum' is : ‘spoils of war which
you take’.
So, the normal translation of the verse goes
like this:
“And
know that whatever you take as spoils of war, indeed a fifth
thereof is for Allaah, and for the messenger and for the kinsman and orphans
and the needy and the wayfarer, if you believe in Allaah and that which We
revealed unto Our slave on the Day of Discrimination, the day when the two
armies met. And Allaah is able to do all things.”
After studying of the dictionaries of
Arabic-to-Arabic and Arabic-to-English, I have come to the conclusion that the
Arabic word غنم (ghanama) has the following meanings:
1. gain (obtain, win or benefit, profit
from something or from doing something)
2. loot (rob or steal goods, especially
from shops or homes that have been damaged in war / riot)
3. win (acquire or secure as a result of
an effort; be victorious in; reach by effort.)
Besides, it also means the animal ‘sheep’,
which does not relate to our study.
If the word has the only meaning: ‘spoils of
war’, as our elders interpret, then how do we reconcile with the usage of that
word in the following verse of Qur-aan:
“O you who believe! When you go forth in the
way of Allaah, be careful
to discriminate, and say not unto one who
greets you Salaam (peace) : "You are not a
believer," seeking the profits of this
life (so that you may despoil him). With
Allaah are plenteous profits. Even thus (as he now is) were you before; but Allaah has
since then been gracious unto you. Therefore take care to discriminate. Allaah is ever
Informed of what you do.” (4:94)
In the above verse, we find the phrase: “With
Allaah are plenteous profits.” Now we cannot imagine substituting
the word ‘profits’ , either with ‘spoils of war’ ,‘loot’ or ‘win’, in the
foregoing sentence, to say: “With Allaah are plenteous ‘spoils of war’ or
‘loot’ or ‘win’ ” This I am giving as a proof to show that ‘profit’ is
also an important meaning of the words غنم
, غنيمة ,مغانم (ghanama, ghaneemah, maghaanima) apart from ‘spoils of war’, and therefore, the stipulation to
spend one-fifth on the specified expenditures applies to all our earnings as
well as the spoils of war.
Our current practice, based upon the teaching
of our elders that a full year must pass on an asset before we become liable to
pay Zakaath on it, is also invalid. We incur the liability to pay a fifth of
our income, on the day we earn it, as can be seen from the following verse,
which relates to agricultural produce.
“It is He Who produces gardens trellised and
untrellised, and the date-palm,
and crops of divers flavour, and the olive and
the pomegranate, like and unlike. Eat you
of the fruit thereof when it fruits, and pay
the due thereof upon the harvest day, and