It is a mass-produced plastic model of the octagonal Dome of the Rock shrine in Jerusalem. Two circular strips of paper glued round it depict the ceramic-faced outer walls. There is a slot for coins to be inserted in the roof, and the dome slides off so that coins can be taken out. Mudar, the organiser of the Islamic Zakat Supporting Committee for the Palestinian People, gave me this collecting mosque in Amman, Jordan. I was there conducting a research project to study Islamic philanthropy and obligatory alms (z a k a t). Well, souvenir models of Christian churches are two a penny all over the world, and it would be incredible if some with slots for coins had not been made somewhere; but I do not remember seeing one. Could it be that my gift from Mudar has something to say about a difference between the two religions

Benthall, J.

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The Qur'an's Call to Alms. Zakat, the Muslim Tradition of Alms-giving

Leiden University Scholary Publications

Regional IssuesI S I M  N E W S L E T T E R  1 / 9 8 13J o r d a nJ O N A TH AN  B E N T H A L LIt is a mass-produced plastic model of the octagonalDome of the Rock shrine in Jerusalem. Two circularstrips of paper glued round it depict the ceramic-facedouter walls. There is a slot for coins to be inserted in theroof, and the dome slides off so that coins can be takenout. Mudar, the organiser of the Islamic Zakat Support-ing Committee for the Palestinian People, gave me thiscollecting mosque in Amman, Jordan. I was there con-ducting a research project to study Islamic philanthropyand obligatory alms (z a k a t). Well, souvenir models ofChristian churches are two a penny all over the world,and it would be incredible if some with slots for coinshad not been made somewhere; but I do not rememberseeing one. Could it be that my gift from Mudar hassomething to say about a difference between the twor e l i g i o n s ?The Qu'ran’sC a l l t o A l m sZakat, the MuslimTradition ofA l m s - G i v i n gIt is a mistake to react against the Islamopho-bia common in the West by accepting a rose-watered version of Islam as a social panacea.However, mainline Islam does not get nearlyenough credit for the imperative to give alms,which is deeply entrenched in the Qu'ran andtraditional authority. Z a k a t is one of the five‘pillars’ of Islam. Unlike other great sacredbooks, the Qu'ran sets out the basic headingsof the budget and expenses of the state, andhistorically anticipated by some 12 centuriesthe principle of what we call social security.More people should know of the existencetoday of big Islamic relief agencies such as theInternational Islamic Relief Organisation,whose headquarters is in Jeddah and whichoperates in countries including Bosnia andSomalia. Some of the Red Crescent nationalsocieties are highly thought of within the RedCross international movement: for instance,the Iranian Red Crescent, which has specialexpertise in earthquake relief. Though theinternational movement is strictly secular, theethos of the Red Crescent national societies isunderpinned by Islamic tradition.Mudar’s committee in Amman is more of agrass-roots operation, of a kind which has rele-vance to the future of the Middle East. Z a k a twas originally a form of wealth tax, and someIslamic states such as Pakistan have tried toreintegrate it with the official taxation system,which predictably results in layers of bureau-cracy. In Jordan, giving zakat is optional but isencouraged by the government through taxconcessions. Mudar’s committee is licensed toraise funds in return for a 10 percent contribu-tion to the government’s own central z a k a tfund. The committee has eight employees andcollects primarily during the month ofRamadan, when giving alms is specially meri-torious, but also throughout the whole year bymeans of telephone, fax, videotapes, mail-shots, and other techniques. Its main activitiesare food relief to the West Bank and Gaza, ‘car-avans of charity’ (mobile health services to iso-lated villages), scholarships, income-generat-ing projects and – above all – sponsoringorphans. Orphans, defined for this purpose aschildren without fathers, are specially favouredby Islamic charities because of many Qu'ranicinjunctions, and because the Prophet Muham-mad was an orphan himself.Mudar is in his early thirties, an educatedmoderate Islamist living in Jordan. His commit-tee is affiliated to the Muslim Brothers, who areparticularly active in charitable affairs and whoalso form in politics the equivalent of a loyalopposition to the Hashemite monarchy.Mudar was insistent on the importance oftrust in matters of charity, with the implicationthat the people at large do not trust govern-ment departments. This is no surprise, for theconcept of trust is fundamental to the Englishlaw of charities. But the commitment to door-to-door charitable giving has strengthenedIslamist movements in the urban areas of theMiddle East where governmental provisionfalls short of often pressing needs. In Jordan, asin neighbouring countries, when a breadwin-ner dies it is common for the widow andorphans to be visited by one of the Islamistgroups and financially supported – which isremembered in the neighbourhood when thetime comes for a political choice. Studies inboth Egypt and Israeli Arab villages confirmthat local welfare services provided by Islamicgroups are on the whole more effective thanstate-sponsored alternatives.This fusion of politics and religion temptssome western commentators to infer thatIslamists are like Leninists, politically motivat-ed tribunes who ruthlessly manipulate popularsentiment. But this is a misinterpretation. Allpopular movements tend to get taken over, tosome degree, by demagogues. But the Qu'ran-ic imperative to help the poor was vital to thebeginnings of the Muslim Brotherhood in1920s Egypt and remains an important con-stituent in most present-day Islamist move-ments, even when some of their factions haveturned to political violence. By contrast, theBolsheviks had no time for private charity andimmediately dissolved all the philanthropicinstitutions of pre-revolutionary Russia.I have no reason to believe that Mudar’scommittee is not strictly humanitarian in thedisbursal of its funds. He told me that a WestBank orphan will be treated the same waywhether his father was a martyr or an informer– though I could not check up on this claim.However, the committee’s appeal literature ispolitically emotive, depicting helpless womenand children in confrontation with Israeli sol-diers. The committee’s logo shows the entireterritory of Palestine (including Israel) superim-posed on the Dome of the Rock, and this repre-sents implicitly a rejection of the Oslo accords.Their collecting mosque thus embodies theview that the conflict is like any other one ofcolonial liberation.Islamic philanthropy seems to have concen-trated until recently on helping first, compatri-ots and second, fellow Muslims. Many tradi-tional readings of the Qu'ran taught that onlyMuslims should be given z a k a t. The mainthrust of the large Islamic relief organisationsfunded by the Gulf states is to help poor andoppressed Muslims – fair enough, consideringthe huge numbers of Muslim refugees and thepoverty of many Muslim states – and theirwork also includes building mosques andsponsoring religious education. More recently,liberal interpretations of the Qu'ran, such asSheikh Al-Khayyat’s, have argued that z a k a tmust be paid to the ‘poor’; that is, all the poor.At the same time, some of the internationalArab charities are gaining a new standing inthe corridors of Geneva by making a point ofextending part of their relief work towardsnon-Muslim communities in need.Z a k a t is a major support in the Islamist caseagainst both capitalism and communism.Some ideologues such as Sayyid Qutb claimthat z a k a t is a specifically Islamic conceptsuperior to Christian charity because, being inprinciple mandatory, it neither exalts the givernor demeans the recipient. In English, muchconfusion has been caused by the conflation oftwo entirely different senses of the Englishword ‘charity’: charity as spiritual love, or theNew Testament agape, and charity as alms.This ambiguity has allowed Christians, whenthey put their alms in a collection plate, theluxury of assuming that they are engaged in anact of spiritual love. Modern churches, by usingterms such as Christian Stewardship, try tobring the practice of alms-giving back to itshistorical origins, where there is hardly morethan differences of emphasis between Jewish,Christian, and Muslim teaching: all say thatwealth belongs to God rather than to us.Many New Testament texts praise materialpoverty and attack the love of money. Yet inpractice it was within Christianity that capital-ism emerged, and very few Christians todaygive away all they have to the poor. The Islam-ic prescription of z a k a t – payment of one forti-eth of one’s assets per year, with many refine-ments of detail – has much in common withthe references to tithing found in the Penta-teuch. In general, Islam is more down-to-earthand practical about money than Christianity.The many Qu'ranic injunctions to give alms arereflected today in popular preaching and reli-gious education; but Muslims are also advisedto keep some money for themselves and togive in keeping with social rank.One Jordanian, a civil servant with the min-istry of religious affairs, neatly defined z a k a tfor me as ‘financial worship’. This is surely aconcept alien to mainstream Christianity.Back to the collecting mosque. I hope not tofind too many plastic churches with slots andremovable spires, for that would disprove myhypothesis. But I would be happy to comeacross the equivalent thing in synagogues, forin their teaching about wealth the Jewish andIslamic traditions have much in common. ♦Jonathan Benthall is director of the RoyalAnthropological Institute of Great Britain andI r e l a n d .This article was first published in The Times HigherEducation Supplement of 3 January 1997, pp. 15-16.© Times Supplements Limited, 1996.A small replicaDome of the Rockto collect z a k a t

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The Qur'an's Call to Alms. Zakat, the Muslim Tradition of Alms-giving

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