Give unto Allah . . .

Submitted by Rebecca Moulds (United States), Sep 26, 2007 at 12:41

Curious to find out what the Islamic economic world is up to, I looked up the Zakat Foundation of America (www.thezakat.org) and found some very interesting items:

The first paragraph explains that zakat is only incumbent on Muslims. Paragraph No. 3 states that "Zakat is an act of worship." Paragraph No. 4 states verse 9:103 from the Qur-an: "Take from their wealth a sadaqa (voluntary giving of charity). Paragraph No. 6 emphatically states that "There is no point in charging the needy."

That means that the poor (Muslims) do not have to pay interest, which if true, sounds too much like pie-in-the-sky economics and prelude to socialism; by what scale is a Muslim considered poor? There are many other statements on this website, all to do with the fact that zakat is part of the Islamic faith and seems to be taken very seriously.

However, after reading Timur Kuran's conclusions, I am ready to believe that all is not aboveboard in the Muslim financial world and perhaps those who believe that these institutions are promoting charitable causes may find out otherwise. It seems that the principal supporters of "Islamic economics" had better clean up their acts, or be subjected to tighter scrutiny.

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