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HINDUSTAN MEIN ZAAT-PAAT AUR MUSALMAN
by Masuud Aalam Falahi
ebooks
https://rek.ht/bk/36iq/2
Auto-generated transcript:
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the Prophetﷺ. It comes from the arcana of Islam. And therefore, it is something which is absolutely critical to fulfill.
And as I said yesterday, we looked at the condition where zakat becomes obligatory. Zakat is on the wealth. And it is fard on every month for a Muslim who pays zakat. Irrespective of age. If a person is baligh, if he is mature, then the obligation is on the individual. But if the person is small, for example, you have settled some money on your little children. Then the obligation to pay zakat on that money is of the guardian. The father, however. But there is zakat on that. You can’t say that this wealth belongs to my little child who is five years old. So there is no zakat. No, zakat is wajib on that. But responsibility to pay that is yours. Obviously, the five-year-old child cannot pay. So responsibility is yours.
Including if there is any money which is settled on a person who is not sane. He doesn’t know what he is doing. But still, zakat is payable on that money by the guardian. Whoever has settled the amount.
The Nisab for zakat, which is the minimum threshold, is eighty-eight grams of gold or sixty-six and two-thirds grams of silver. Or six hundred and thirteen grams of silver. So if you have that much of gold or that much of silver or the equivalent of that, which means in terms of money and so on, then zakat is liable. You are liable to pay zakat on the entire wealth, whatever it is. The best way to calculate and pay zakat is to pick one day in the year, whichever day. Usually we pay in Ramadan because of the additional reward of paying in Ramadan, but there is no requirement that zakat should be paid only in Ramadan; you can pay in any month. So pick any one day and then your wealth on that day: gold, silver, cash (which is cash in hand, cash in bank accounts), any shares (if you have a share portfolio), then the value of the portfolio. And if you are in business and you have trade goods, all of this zakat is liable on that. So calculate your total wealth on that day. 2.5% of that is to be paid as zakat.
Zakat is payable to somebody who does not have wealth equal to the nisab of zakat, which I mentioned before. If you have the nisab, then you have to pay zakat. If you do not have the nisab, then you are eligible to receive zakat from somebody else. Zakat cannot be paid to somebody who has the nisab of wealth for zakat. It is very important to make sure that you are paying zakat to people who are eligible to receive it. Right. Now, as I mentioned yesterday, you do not have to do some financial investigation of that person. But generally speaking, if there is somebody who you know that this person does not have that kind of wealth, you can pay zakat. Once again, zakat is a wealth tax. It is not an income tax. So even if somebody has money, they may not have the wealth. There is no savings. So they will be eligible for zakat, even though they may be getting a salary and so on. That does not prevent them from being eligible for zakat.
Then zakat: to whom zakat can be paid in this context. Zakat can be paid to… let me say, zakat cannot be paid to your immediate family members. For the man, he cannot pay zakat to his wife. He cannot pay zakat to his parents. He cannot pay zakat to his children because he is responsible for taking care of them. So he cannot use zakat money for that. But the woman, she can pay zakat to her husband and she can pay zakat to her parents and she can pay zakat to her children because she is not responsible for their upkeep. So if she wants, she can do that. The reason for this is that the wife of the husband is financially dependent on him.
Say, then I next that if you get anything about me from Abdullah bin Masood, take it. The Prophet said this only about Abdullah bin Masood; that’s why in the Hanafi Fiqh, you see anytime there is a hadith which is quoted by Abdullah bin Masood, and the same hadith is quoted by somebody else, or a hadith about the same thing is quoted by somebody else, because Imam Abu Hanifa always used to take the quotation of Abdullah bin Masood. He would give that preference over the narration of anybody else. Now Abdullah bin Masood was a great scholar and so on, but he was very poor. He had no money. His wife Zainab, she was wealthy. She had her own business, and in Islam the woman is allowed to have her own business, and she has full control of her wealth. She had wealth. So when the time came for paying Zakat, she asked her husband, she said, “Can I give my Zakat to you?” Abdullah bin Masood said, “I don’t know.”
So she said, “Please ask Rasulullahﷺ.”
Abdullah bin Masood said, “Go and ask yourself.”
She said, “Come with me.” He said, “I will not come with you.” So she went, and she knocked on the door, said, “Bilal.” He opened the door. Nabi said, “Who is it?” She said, “Zainab.” He said, “Which Zainab?” She said, “Zainab, the wife of Abdullah bin Masood.” Nabi asked her to come. She went in. There was some other Sahaba with Nabi.
She said, “Rasulullah, I have a question. I have wealth. I have to give Zakat. Can I give my Zakat to my husband, Abdullah bin Masood?”
Nabi said to the other people around him, he said, “See what a beautiful question. She has asked.” So he praised the question. He said, “Yes, you can give your Zakat to your husband, and Allah will give you double the reward. One reward for paying the Zakat, and the second reward for helping your husband.” So this is the issue of paying Zakat.
Zakat also: people who are directly descended from the family of Rasulullahﷺ, the Hashemi people, they are not entitled to or allowed to consume Zakat. Zakat and Sadaqah, they cannot take. Now, the question yesterday, I think you asked me this question. So, how, when we pay, if somebody’s name is Sayyed something. So then we should… should we give Zakat to them or not? Now my answer to that, may Allah make it correct. My answer to that is, it is the responsibility of the individual, whether he wants to accept it or not accept it. So leave it to them. If you think they are so poor, and if you do not have any other way of helping them, if you have only Zakat money, you can, inshaAllah, give the money to them, with the intention of helping the family of Rasulullahﷺ. And you have only this much. Because you don’t want to punish somebody for being from the family of the Nabiﷺ. Right?
Now the reason I’m saying that also is because, in this country, or say South Asia, there are many people who call themselves Sayyed. They are actually not Sayyed. They are… there’s no connection with the Hashemites. They have no connection with the family of Rasulullahﷺ. There’s no Shajarah, there’s no record, nothing. They call themselves Sayyed because, in this country, may Allah have mercy on us, and I have given, I sent you the reference yesterday. Umm… Anybody who’s interested, send me your emails, I’ll send you. There is somebody called Maulana Falahi, who has actually written a book. It’s called *Hindustan Mein Zaat, Paat aur Musalmaan* by Masood Alam Falahi. He is from Deoband. He has written this book; he’s done a lot of research, and what he has shown is that, very unfortunately, in India, our ulama created a caste system among the Muslims, which is exactly like the Hindu caste system. So they made, in the Muslim community, they split into three parts. There’s nothing to Islam, believe me. This is all created locally. Umm… They call them the Ashraf, the Ajlaf, and the Ardal. The Ashraf: Syed, Moghal, Pathan. Right? So Syed, Moghal, Pathan (Ashraf). Ajlaf are the tradesmen, and so on and so forth. And the Ardal, they call them, which comes from the word Dalit. So people who are without honor. Exactly like that, like the Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Sudra, the same system they brought into Islam. To the extent that we have today, people in this country who are called Dalit Muslims.
What is that? Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala sent us a religion in which there is no caste system. Every human being is equal to every other human being. We don’t have anybody who’s superior and inferior. Right? When Nabi Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam said, “My family is not permitted to eat zakat money,” he’s not saying, “We are superior to somebody else.” He’s not saying that. It’s just that because this is Nabi Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam and his family, there are some special rules for them. Other than that, it does not mean that he’s claiming to be superior. But may Allah have mercy. People have… I’ve given you the reference of the book. Read the book. It’s worth reading. And that book has got some actual quotations that come from the writings of some of the biggest ulama in this country. May Allah have mercy on them and forgive them, which have ingrained and created this false Muslim caste system. So, my reason for saying that even if somebody’s name is Syed, if they are poor, if they need money to survive, you can give Zakat to them. My reason is, in my view, more than likely they are not Syed at all. They just took the name Syed because of the caste system.
For example, like I said yesterday, there are many people who call themselves Khan. He is not a Pathan. He’s got no Afghan blood in him. He didn’t come anywhere. He is somebody who is from South India, which means he is Dravidian. Right? But he calls himself Khan. The reason he calls himself Khan is because if he calls himself by any other name, then they will look down on him and they will chuck him out. May Allah have mercy. I know specifically there are masajid where they do not allow Dalit Muslims to come and pray in the masjid. This is the truth. In North India, marriages are not done at all between these sects; no way they will not do it. They are not done by our community.
Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un. We have only one community, which is the Ummah of Rasulullahﷺ. Anyone who creates these divisions and differences is doing something which is completely and totally haraam. It doesn’t matter what alim you call yourself. It’s even a bigger sin because as an alim, this is the last thing you should be doing. But may Allah have mercy. People do that. So therefore, Zakat… but if you know, for example, specifically, there is a wonderful story about Sayyidina Abu’l Hasan ibn Ladwiyah, may Allah have mercy on him, he mentions this story. He said, when he was a little child, there was a maid servant in their house, who used to look after him. She would feed him, she would carry him around, so little baby, little boy. So, she said, “One day,” he said, “One day, this maid servant went to the bazaar market, and she took the little boy along with her.” And on the way back, there was some function. You know, they have these functions, which are all again, completely un-Islamic. After somebody dies, after three days, they have what is called the ziyarat, and they read some Qur’an, and they eat some food. Then after 40 days, they have chahal loom, and this and so on. So, all of these are completely un-Islamic. Nothing to do with Islam, but people do it anyway.
Anyway, so there was this function, and these people were eating. So, this lady, she went there, and they gave her some food. So, she was eating. Abu’l Hasan, he was eating… Ali Nadir Rahmatullah Ali, little boy, he put out his hand to take some food. Obviously she is eating, so he wanted to share. She moved his hand away. She said, “This is not for you. You cannot eat this. This is not halal for you.” Right, because he is Sayyid. I mean, this is Sayyid, Abu’l Hasan Ali Nadir Rahmatullah Ali, absolutely, without a doubt, the Shajarah goes all the way; he is Hassani and Hussaini, both. So, he goes all the way up to Mr. Salim. So she said, “You are Sayyid, you cannot eat this. This is Sadaqah food. Right, for me it’s okay, you cannot eat.”
So, the point being that, where you know for certain that the family is, in fact, Hashimi, that they are Sayyid, then don’t give Zakat to them, but make sure you give from non-Zakat funds, because we should not be in a position where it’s as if you are punishing somebody from being from the family of Rasulullahﷺ by withholding help. For that reason, and that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. So, be very clear about that.
Very important to understand that Zakat must be given to the individual, and that individual must be made the full and independent owner of that. So, you cannot attach a condition to the Zakat and say, “Here is the money, use it for this.” You cannot do that. Right? That should be given to them; they are free to decide what to do with it. You can advise people—that’s a different issue—but you cannot make that a condition on giving the Zakat to them. So, here is the money, pay your school fees, here is the money, do this, do that: that is not permissible in Zakat.
Now payment of Zakat itself. Zakat can be paid in cash or in kind; both is permissible. Cash is preferable because it is more convenient for people to use it for whatever they really need. But supposing you say, “I want to give some food grain,” or “I want to give clothing,” or something in Zakat, can I give that? Yes, you can give that. However, as I said, cash is preferable because you might give clothing to somebody who doesn’t need clothes but needs money to pay school fees. Now with the clothes, what will they do? They can’t sell the clothes easily; nobody will buy it. If they try to sell it, they’ll get a discounted price, so they are not going to get any real money out of that. So what? They cannot take the clothes and say, “Here are clothes for my child’s school fees.” School won’t take clothes. Right? So, it is much better to give cash. But legally speaking, can you give in kind? Yes, you can give in kind also.
Generally speaking, Zakat on the thing is preferred to be paid in that same commodity. For example, gold pays Zakat in gold. Silver pays Zakat in silver. Cash pays cash. Right? And so on. Trade goods pay in the goods itself. But, supposing you have jewelry, what are you going to do? Chop the jewelry? Give a piece of this? You can’t do that. So, you give a value of that: 2.5% of that you give. So therefore, it is permissible to pay in kind, but preferable to pay in cash because that is much more convenient for people to use. But if you have kind, you know, I have been given traditionally also we have been given… we have this grain or something, especially where you might say, well, I am giving food grains to people who need food grains. It’s not random. I am giving clothes to these people; I know they need these clothes. Most welcome, please give, no problem. But generally giving things defeats the purpose of helping people because you are giving them something which they can’t sell or effectively use. What will they do with that? So, be very clear about that.
And as I said, the Zakat must be paid to the individual, and the individual must be made the full owner of that, which means that collecting Zakat funds, investing that in a mutual fund, or investing that in an endowment fund, and then using the earnings of that fund to pay charity, is highly haram; it is not permissible. For two reasons: first of all, the purpose of Zakat, which is that the Zakat should be given directly to the eligible individual, that purpose is defeated because you have not given it directly; you have invested it in a fund. Second thing is, there is risk. Any fund is liable to crash and lose value, then that whole money is gone completely. So if you are paying Zakat to an organization, and if you know that this organization is investing your Zakat money into a fund, please take it back, please take it back. Because please understand very clearly, Zakat is a personal commitment. It’s a personal obligation on you. Salatul Fajr which we pray is a personal commitment on us to pray; you cannot say to the Imam Sahib, “Maulana Abu Bakar, you pray for Salatul Fajr,” or “You read my mind.” No, you can’t read my mind. I have to pray for Salat; it’s a personal obligation on me. Right? He is leading the Salat; he is not praying for me; he is praying for himself. Similarly, Zakat: I have to pay my own Zakat; it’s my responsibility. I can’t say, “I gave my Zakat to this person, I don’t know what he did.” No, you cannot say that. You have to know what he did with it. So the best way of giving Zakat is you give it yourself, with your own hand, as I explained yesterday.
The reason behind that is, if a person takes his 2.5% Zakat—which is obviously a small amount of money—he takes his 2.5%, he goes to some place, he goes to his poor people, he takes the money and gives them. But he sees that this 2.5% is not going to solve any problem for them because they have got so many problems. They have got medical bills, they have got school bills, they have got houses leaking, God knows what’s happening there. Now you might feel that this is not enough. Alhamdulillah, Allah has given me more; I will give more; I will help them more. That is the wisdom behind it to encourage you to do more good in the path of Allahﷻ. So the best way is go and pay your own Zakat yourself.
Now having said that, you might say, well you know, I don’t know who to give to; I don’t know any people, and so on. Anyone living in these countries… you can’t say, “I don’t know.” This country is filled with poverty; we are like number one in the poverty index, so right? So you got plenty of need, but anyway, you might say, well I personally don’t know, and so on. I don’t know where to go. So I can… can I give my Zakat to an organization which is collecting Zakat funds for disbursement? There are many organizations. Answer is yes, you can do that, but it does not absolve you from your responsibility of paying Zakat. It is your job to make sure that they are disbursing it to the right people and to the right people within the specific time, which is within that year. That’s your responsibility. Now, you don’t have to go and take everything, but one way of doing that is: before you give your donation, you ask them, “Do you have a separate account for the Zakat funds?” Because they will be getting general charity fund and so on and so on. Are you mixing all of it up, or do you have a separate account for this? Then it does have to be a separate bank account, meaning in their accounting procedure, do they account the Zakat funds separately? Number one. Number two, please show me last year how much did you receive, where did you distribute, did you finish it in the same year, or are you carrying forward some from last year? If they are carrying forward, don’t give it to them because it means they are not fulfilling their obligation, right? Then randomly, you can say, okay, so this money who do you give it to? I gave it to Zaid Bin Bakar. Who is Zaid Bin Bakar? Where does he live? He lives on so and so place. If required, go and check. Once you are satisfied, InshaAllah no problem, you can give your money to somebody who is disbursing this Zakat. But…
Ensuring that it is done in the correct way, do not give it to an organization which invests it in a fund. People do all kinds of magic with these funds; please understand. The beauty of this Deen, Islam, is that we have been given a way of life by Allahﷻ Himself, and Rasoolullahﷺ elaborated on that and taught it to us. Right? There is no third teacher. We don’t need anybody else, and we don’t have anybody else. So if somebody says, “No, I have a great idea,” sorry, excuse me, thank you very much, keep the idea, but we are not interested because we know what to do. This has been designated and clearly commanded by Allah and His Nabi, عليه السلام. That’s it; we will follow that.
Make sure the money goes to the right people: the categories mentioned yesterday. These include the poor—people who ask, and people who don’t ask but are poor—the workers, the Zakat administrators, and Zakat collectors. However, those rules do not apply to you and me; that is for the government where they collect Zakat. They have people doing this work who can be paid from the Zakat money.
People who have recently embraced Islam may need some funds, and so on. That can be given to them under *Firaab* (Fi Ribaabi), which assists in the release of captives. For example, people need bail. If they get bail, they can come out. In this country, we’ve got hundreds of thousands of people like that. There is no case against them; nothing. Just raise the money for bail, and the person will go home. They don’t have money, so Zakat money can be used for that. You can also release people from slavery. You use *Gharimin* to pay off somebody’s debt. This includes any interest payments they need to pay because if they borrowed on interest, they will have to pay that. Zakat money can be used to pay off that debt.
Then there are people working *Fi Sabeelillah*, in the path of Allahﷻ, in any kind of work. And there are *Ibnus-Sabil*, wayfarers, who may be wealthy or well-to-do in their hometowns but are stranded somewhere with no money now. Zakat money can be given to them to help them out.
It is very important to understand that all of this is for Muslims only. Right? Muslims are encouraged to give charity to anybody, Muslim or non-Muslim; there is no problem with that. But Zakat money can be given only to Muslims. So it doesn’t mean we don’t give money or don’t help non-Muslims. Of course, we help everybody, but specifically through Zakat, it is restricted. For example, you might say, “Inheritance money.” If somebody asks you why Zakat money is only for Muslims, ask them about inheritance. If my father dies and his property needs distribution, why not my neighbor? Should I not help my neighbor? You ask them: Inheritance. That is a senseless question. Inheritance is meant for the people whom Allahﷻ designated as inheritors of the individual who passed away. That’s it. My neighbor doesn’t come into that picture unless my neighbor is my brother or someone related. A neighbor is just a neighbor. It doesn’t mean we aren’t being good to neighbors. No, be good to your neighbor; nothing wrong with that. But this specific money is meant for a certain category of people.
Similarly, Zakat is meant for Muslims. There is no Zakat money which can be given to non-Muslims. You want to help non-Muslims? Most welcome, please help them, but not with Zakat money. That is not permissible to be given to them.
Okay, as far as agricultural produce is concerned, that is called *Ushr*. It’s not called Zakat; it’s a different thing altogether. The percentage of that is 10%; it’s not 2.5%. And that must be given in kind only. So you can also give that in cash, but much more preferred to give in kind. So that is 10%, not 2.5%.
We ask Allah to help us fulfill our obligations. As I said, Zakat is very important. We ask Allah to help us fulfill our obligations and to give us what He promised: “Take the money to purify their wealth.” So Zakat payment purifies your wealth and brings Barakah into our lives. Also, Abhishek Assalam said make Dua for them; your Dua is a means of *Sakheela* (expansion). So InshaAllah, we also expect and ask for the blessing of Allah in this whole matter.
Wa Salallahu Ala Nabeel Karim Wa Ala Alihi Wa Sahabi Ajma’im Bi Rahmatik Ya Rahmanir Rahim