Zakat: Collection and Disbursal

Radiance (9-15 March 2008) has published a well-written article by Abdur Raheem Shariq discussing the potential that Zakat has of wiping the tears from the eyes and faces of the poor and the wretched. He raises the pertinent question in the very title of his article asking if the meagre budgetary allocation this year (of about 1725 crore) is the answer to the questions raised by the pathetic poverty of the Indian Muslim community as recorded in the Sachar Committee Report or is the Zakat amount (of over 5000 crore rupees) is one of the better options. This requires full attention of Indian Muslims as well as their leaders. This scribe has tried to make a humble contribution to the related matters and strategies in the following lines.

The amount of Zakat money available for disbursal on Ramadan 1 of 2008 let’s say, has been calculated in that article at over Rs.5000 crore. This calculation is based on the Gross Domestic Savings in India and the share of Muslims in it.

There may be other methods of estimating the countrywide Zakat amount but this is not relevant immediately. The more relevant matters today are:

1. How to bring the payment of Zakat within the list of ‘essentials’ of every Zakat paying person’s life;

2. How to collect it in the most efficient and fully honest manner; and finally

3. How to disburse it in the most beneficial, and again fully honest, manner.

According to the famous primer, Ta’leem ul Islam by Maulana Mufti Kifayatullah, these heads ‘these days’ (we can take this to mean a little before mid-20th century when this book would have been written) are:

1. To such poor whose wealth falls short of the minimum at which they themselves would have become Zakat assessees. Such people are called Faqeer in jurisprudential terminology;

2. To such very poor who do not have any wealth at all. Such people are called Miskeen.

3. To such men who are burdened with   debt and who do not have assessable wealth apart from that debt.

4. To travellers who have become indigent while journeying.

5. To students of religious schools (madrasas) either directly or through the teachers or administrators of their schools.

From the above, it would appear that it is possible to discuss and confirm this list or agree on a different list according to the conditions at a given time.

One of the most important omissions in the above list is that of the ‘Softening of the Hearts’ (Muallafat ul Quloob). This head of expenditure justifies the sharing of a reasonable part of the Zakat (a maximum of 12% – about the same percentage that the Muslims are of the Indian population [13.4%] and which fact we routinely use to determine or lobby for our rights) with poor non-Muslims in order to combat the senseless hate-mongering that has been poisoning the Muslim-Hindu relations in India for the last many years.

This scribe knows people who have been recipients of Zakat for over 30 years and are still living below poverty line. This has led him to the question if Zakat alone is enough for poverty alleviation or is it barely sufficient for consumption needs of the recipients, such as health, education, housing, marriage, etc.

This leads us to the conclusion that all recipients of Zakat must necessarily be encouraged to constantly try and reduce and ultimately eliminate their dependence on Zakat. They can do this by increasing their earnings. One of the most important ways of achieving this has been found to be micro-financing of the poor in a Cooperative Matrix like at Grameen Bank of Bangladesh and at the Al Khair Cooperative Credit Society of Patna.

This scribe participated a few years ago in a door-to-door ‘Reminder Campaign’ in Kuwait. The campaign took note of the general practice of the community to pay the Zakat during the month of Ramadan. It, therefore, began well before Ramadan and lasted for the whole month.

The initial reaction of the heads of the households our team visited was one of trepidation: why are these men who do not look like the people who generally ask for Zakat talking about it? they seemed to ask.

However, as soon as we explained that the team meant only to ‘remind’ that the essentiality of Zakat was next to prayers. We clarified that we were not at all asking that Zakat be paid to us but only that it be paid for the causes considered most deserving of it by the householders themselves. Their grimness would break into a mixture of smiles on faces and lit up their eyes. We would thereafter even be invited   for a bit of hospitality, which we would thankfully decline for want of time.

Although we did not do data collection and analysis exercise to find if a ‘larger than before’ amount was given away as Zakat by those households, there was reasonable ground to assume that some beneficial effect did take place.

There is a need now to adopt this system more widely, every year, everywhere in the country. If the school age students as well as the youth of the community are asked to perform this duty in addition to other teams, it will be a useful diffusion of the ‘spirit of giving out’ in them at a young age, not to be easily forgotten.

These teams must carry and distribute leaflets showing the essentials of calculating the Zakat on various kinds of assets in the language of the area.

The Imams of the mosques can be requested to join this drive, bringing to bear their moral authority to this essential task.

A very good suggestion has been made in that article that Zakat be collected through Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, All India Muslim Personal Law Board and such other bodies. I join in asking these very well respected bodies to accept this challenge as well as to ask as many other organisations as possible to join them in carrying out this stupendous task.

Knowing that a huge pyramidal system of collection and disbursal needs to be at the heart of an efficient Zakat System, these bodies would doubtless be mindful of the systemic weaknesses of the IMC which control the efficacy or otherwise of any undertaking as extensive as this one covering 3-4 crore Muslim households throughout the whole of India.

The present task which may end at the start of Ramadan be just to remind the Muslims, on the pattern described above, by mohalla/village groups and to collect the data regarding the situation before and after this reminder exercise each year.

Simultaneously, the period till Ramadan 2011 be used by JIH and AIMPLB and others to plan and put in place an efficient and working Zakat System. This will be an extensive task and will have to involve representatives of:

1. Institutional recipients and users of Zakat: it is known that these are mainly our Religious Schools / Madrasas;

2. Representatives of the poor and the wretched who currently do receive Zakat;

3. The same as (2) above but who do not receive any Zakat;

And of the following:

4. Islamic Jurisprudential Experts (Fuqaha);

5. Management Experts;

6. Experts of Self Help Groups, Cooperative Credit Societies and similar NGOs;

7. Statisticians;

8. Economists;

9. Sociologists;

10. Etc. and finally,

11. Ashab e Nisab who pay the Zakat;

12. The same as (11) above but who do not pay the Zakat at various points of time during this long exercise.

This exercise will need to be financed from the Zakat, currently collected.

It is very important to remember that the concept of unity of the Indian Muslim community, even though highly commended, its reality is somewhat fickle. While all of us should be trying and praying for it, its absence need not detain us and no time need be wasted in waiting for it to materialise.

Work should commence with whoever are willing to come, sit, talk and work together with one very important message to all those who keep away: come and join if and when you wish, you will always be welcome; or work independently, your independence of action will always be respected.

It is equally important to note that centralisation of collection and disbursal should be entirely voluntary and must be left in the hands of the Zakat payers as long as they want it to be so.

There will be a need to assure the current recipients, mainly the institutional, that their current share from the Zakat will not be reduced for a reasonable period – to be determined in consultation with them.

Over time, however, they may be brought round to the view that costly assets creation needs to be avoided. Madrasas are welcome but hostels may be avoided so that the cross country travel of the children of the poor does not take place and they remain the responsibility of the rich of their own area. And that the children of the villages in which each madrasa is located, may benefit from its presence within their midst.

Buildings with a shorter life may be encouraged in comparison to those with a longer life. The savings from this to be used for better teaching facilities for students and higher compensation for teachers. There will be a need to tell the recipients of the Zakat that very strong efforts should be made by them to rise above the status of poverty in as little a time as possible.

In fact, it may not be remiss to apply the pressure of social stigma attaching to those who do not pay Zakat in spite of them being sahib-e-Nisab and to those who do not try and rise above the poverty line in a reasonable period of say 10 years, in spite of receiving the Zakat from their more fortunate brothers.

A formula similar to the atonement of lifetime for the daily prayers (Qaza e Umri) may be worked out for those who wish to make up for their non-payment of the Zakat in the past. There always is and will always be a need for a cross-fertilisation of ideas by inviting representatives of the various schools of thought to explain their Zakat system   so that we can learn from them.

In a similar vein, it will be useful for Indian Muslims’ representatives to go to S. Africa or to invite the representatives of S African Muslims (who are like us, a minority of just 2 per cent in S. Africa but are recognised as a group giving away the maximum wealth in charity) who have, as this scribe recently read, linked their Zakat system to their strategies of poverty alleviation, micro-financing, etc. to explain their approach.

The Ramadan of 2011 will, God willing, infuse a new life into one of the most potent wealth distributive and economically reconstructive elements of Islam, devised for the betterment of the lives of both the givers as well as the takers of Zakat.