Accent on collectivism
By Jafar Wafa
Global attention has suddenly turned on the religious beliefs of the adherents of Islam, the world over, and their collective behavior as a mass of people subscribing to the tenets of this faith. It is a post-9/11 phenomenon.
While Islam is distinct from other religions in so many respects, its one main distinctive feature is that, apart from working for one's personal salvation, a Muslim is supposed to seek the salvation of the entire community of believers. Salvation, not of the soul alone in the Hereafter but also in the present life.
The very opening surah (or chapter) of the Quran begins with the supplication by the reader to the "Creator/Sustainer of all the worlds to guide us (me included) to the right path." The Quranic supplication to God, precisely forty in number, that are addressed to "Our Creator (Rabbana)," not my Creator, are prayers to the Almighty, not from an individual, but from a community of believers. One such supplication, which is on the lips of every believer during the ritual five-time prayers every day, can be rendered in English thus:
"Our Lord and Creator! Give us in this world that which is good and also in the Hereafter that which is good and guard us from the doom of Hell" (Surah 2, Verse 200). This prayer, in fact, sums up the whole purpose of the Prophet's mission on earth - uplifting the 'believers' (or those who heed his teachings) to a high moral and spiritual level through prayers, fasting and charity and also alleviating the sufferings of the less fortunate ones, arising from penury, poverty, political subjugation, or any other mundane cause hurting them in this world.
If one agrees with this sequence of argument, one can discover the blending of the moral and the mundane aspects of earthly existence in the performance of all the four basic tenets of Islam: 1) The ritual prayers, or Salat, are to be offered five times a day, preferably in a congregation, though praying individually is permitted. Nothing can better serve the purpose of creating God-consciousness by bending and bowing before Him with such frequency and, at the same time, inculcating the spirit of belonging to one community. The Quran says that "the believers are naught else than brothers" (49:10). But what it says are not just empty words like many sayings of the wise and holy men.
The institution of congregational prayers, five times consecutively from dawn to dusk, has been prescribed to ensure that the dictum of Islamic fraternity and Islamic community is a practical proposition. It is unfortunate that some organizations have been dubbed as subversive outfits, although they owe their origin to the noble and well-meaning doctrine that the believers are brothers among themselves who cooperate with one another in all pious and worthy fields instead of being selfish or jealous and unhelpful.
2) All those acts of charity that are meant for the welfare of the deprived and the depressed sections of the community are sadaqa and zakat. Although giving alms to deserving individuals is permitted, yet collection of zakat, the religiously mandatory poor-tax, is required to be organised by the Islamic state and deposited in the State Treasury, or Baitul Mal, to be spent on poverty alleviation measures and affording financial help to the "poor and the needy, to offer money to those whose hearts are to be won, to free the captives and debtors, and for the cause of Allah, and for the wayfarers."
These categories of persons who have to be helped from the zakat fund were laid down in the Quran (9:60) keeping in view the conditions prevailing at the time of the revelation. In today's world, "captives, debtors and wayfarers" have to be re-defined, which is not a formidable task in view of the pervasive poverty in a country like Pakistan which, according to the World Bank's latest report on "Poverty Assessment", "allocates 42 per cent lower health spending per capita compared to other countries at its income level... as a result of political choices reflecting the voting blocks prevalent in Pakistani elections."
Bulk of the zakat, (other than what is deducted by banks and saving centres) is paid individually and mostly to individuals and professional beggars rather than welfare institutions. This thwarts the real purpose of zakat which is to satisfy the requirements of "the poor and needy" sections of the community through collective effort. So, in case of zakat, as in salat, although a believer is permitted to discharge his religious duty individually, the recommended and more rewarding course is praying and paying collectively.
To encourage praying in congregations and paying for the collective good of the society, the Quran announces that "anxiety and irritation, which are inherent in human nature, will not afflict those who are constant in offering prayers and who do not hoard and withhold their wealth but acknowledge that the needy and the destitute have a share in it." (70:18-25).
3) The denial of food and drink while fasting in the month of Ramazan is a personal inconvenience experienced by each individual who fasts to comply with a religious obligation. But by nominating a particular lunar month for the purpose of fasting by the believers all over the world, it has acquired the status of a collective exercise of self-abnegation, as every one undergoes it in unison with the entire community dispersed all over the planet.
4) Hajj, the fourth pillar of the faith, is again a kind of harmonious blending of the individual believer with his whole global community. Each person, wearing the same kind of unstitched simple robe, performing together all the ritualistic chores, gravitating to a common centre, Kaaba, is a practical demonstration of the collectivism of the world Muslims on an unmatched massive scale.
In this piece an attempt has been made to paraphrase in simple English a portion of the early Meccan surah 90 of the quran to show that it was a manifest Divine intention, right from the inception of Islam, to induce the believers to make concerted efforts for uplifting society by helping "the poor and the needy" and others, as given in Surah 9 (excerpted and reproduced in one of the foregoing paras) which was revealed in the later period of the holy Prophet's life in Madina.
Zakat was made compulsory in about 8 A.H. and it was institutionalised then and thereafter. But, as we will see, very high priority in the list of virtues was assigned to the eradication of poverty even in the Meccan era of helplessness and adversity. How this priority has been relegated to the back burner and how the faithful consider clinging only to formal worship and outward piety taking it as the be-all and end-all of religion, like any other religious community, is really pathetic.
These are the Almighty's words, in plain language, for those who think and ponder: "Has man not been assigned two eyes, a tongue and two lips (i.e. the five senses) and shown the gorge where he mountain paths intersect (i.e. where the paths leading to virtue and vice take off). To ascend the summit, one has to free a slave, feed the hungry, look after an orphan, near of kin and help the poor wretch out of his miserable predicament."
Eternal and abiding success cannot be achieved by devoting oneself tirelessly to personal piety but by playing one's role in the collective social effort to mitigate human suffering - poverty, disease, ignorance and inequity.
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