About Charity

Yesterday I got a call from one of my elderly friend, asking me about charity. She wants to do a personal donation, but wants to know what would be the best way. I explained her about Sadaka; and in plain word Sadaka simply means charity. I said that main reason for doing charity is to bring us closer to the creation and the Creator and made us selfless and humble. I told her that giving to any humanitarian cause will do the job. I also said Islamic Sadaka (charity) has more depth and juice in it than regular charity. As Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said that any good deed counts as a charity by Allah the Almighty; such as giving smiles to the fellow human beings and picking up even the smallest hazardous items from the road are considered as charity. So whatever we do, first we have to check our intentions, if we are doing it to please Allah only or not (because we are accountable to Him in the day of judgment for our actions) and secondly we are creating the bonding with the world or not. Showing off will do the job, but it will not fulfill the Islamic charity which benefits us in the second life. Any kind of time, money and effort to do good in this world is considered as charity, that’s why it has become one of the five pillars of Islam and they are:

1. Declaration of faith;

2. Establishing Salat (five daily prayers which include bowing and prostrations);

3. Giving Zakat (the mandatory charity);

4. Fasting in the month of Ramadan and

5. Going to the pilgrimage once in a life time to Makkah, Saudi Arabia.

There are different kinds of charities in Islam. First one is the compulsory annual charity, Zakat which is 2.5% of the Nisaab (savings of particular amounts), has to be given in eight fixed categories. There is another kind of charity which is called Mannat (in Sub-Continental pronunciation). It is kind of conditional charity, when we ask specific thing from Allah and say to Allah such as if this disease goes away I will do this amount or type of charity. The donor cannot have any share from Mannat, which means if we invite people usually we can also eat with our guests. But with Mannat we have to distribute the whole thing, we cannot share any part of it. Other kind is regular charity, Sadaka. As a Muslim it has to be done left and right as long as we are alive. Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) himself practiced this regular extensive charity and told us that if we even see that a sudden calamity is coming and we are going to die for sure, still in this condition if we have a young plant in our hand then we better plant that young tree before we die.

Among the people who are not acquainted with a good Muslim, they sometimes get puzzled and ask us about our motives, why we do what we do? Actually the compulsion of doing well in every situation comes from our teachings. Generally we are not allowed to judge any person personally, but his deeds only; in other words we have to love people as a whole and we cannot be judgmental. As a Muslim, we also have to be a conscious person and we have to be open minded towards our surroundings. If we see something, we have to act on it. Actions are also defined by the Prophet (peace be upon him) that if we see some thing needs to done, we have to do it physically; if the situation is not favorable then we have to speak out about it; and if that is not possible then at least we have to have a reaction in our heart about it (because we just cannot be unconcerned and unobservant); but the last one is described as the weakest faith. All the good works are considered as worshipping in Islam and these have to be done with delicacy and wisdom.