Everything Belongs To Allah? - Islam and Generosity
Two billion people in the world are Muslims, bowing to the disciplined, comprehensive belief system with obligatory conviction.
Islam’s mono-deity is viewed by His believers as even more supremely omnipotent, powerful, dominant and formidable than the trisected Christian God, or YHWH, the Abrahamic OG. The Arabic word Islam literally means “surrender” because His adherents offer their total submission to the will of “The Beneficent”, “The Eternal Lord”, “The Most Sacred” and the other 96 terms signifying Allah, who is revered repetitively in Muslim conversation via phrases such as Allahu Akbar (“God is the Greatest”), Insha Allah (“If God Wills”), Mashallah (“As God has willed it”), Alhamdulillah (“All Praise is to God”) and multiple other honorifics.
In the Quran, Muslims are referred to as Allah’s “slaves” and “servants.” It is haram, prohibited, a blasphemous sin to draw a picture of Allah. His pronoun must be capitalized. His name in both speech and writing might be trailed by the term Subhanahu wa ta’ala (“Glory be to Him, the Exalted”), mercifully abbreviated in many texts to “SWT.” Christians are supposed to worship once a week every Sunday; Muslims are required to pray 35 times a week. Catholics fast twice a year (Ash Wednesday and Good Friday); Muslims fast 29-30 days during Ramadan. Christian women abandoned head coverings in church the 1960’s; between 500-800 million Muslim women today still wear hijabs (head scarves) 100 percent of the time in public.
How is the so-called “human virtue” of generosity defined and displayed in Islam, where Allah seems to control everything?
First of all, Allah is praised as Al-Kareem, “The Most Generous,” even though He didn’t sacrifice any of his children, like the Christian God. He gained this reputation with Muslims because He has the all attributes of a benevolent patriarch: He forgives sinners, He rewards the obedient, He gives earth’s bounty to humanity, He provides protection to the needy. Secondly, the founder of Islam, the Prophet Muhammad, was also “the most generous of all people” (according to Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī), with numerous tales illustrating his compassion for the poor, especially during Ramadan. Jabir, a favored companion of Muhammad, claimed The Prophet never said `no' to anyone who asked him for something. [Note: Muhammad also gets a salutation after his name; it is Sallallahu ‘Alayhi Aa Sallam (“Peace be upon him”) abbreviated as SAW or PBUH].
Generosity was installed by Muhammad as one of the Five Pillars of Islam. Zakat (Almsgiving) is #3 on the list, preceded by Shahada (profession of faith) and Salah (prayer), and flanked by Sawn (fasting) and Hajj (pilgrimage). Zakat requires all Muslims who can afford it to distribute a portion of their wealth and accumulated assets, usually 2.5 percent, to less fortunate members of their community, to ensure the group’s financial and social well-being and to create justice and fairness in the world. Modern nonprofit policies that fund sustainability and micro-finance are rooted in the 1400-year-old Quran.
Sadaqah is another form of Islamic charity. Unlike Zakat it is not required; it is optional, voluntary. Sadaqah is anything given freely to others to simply please Allah. Sadaqah doesn’t need to be cash or goods, it can be an action as basic as smiling at a stranger or helping an elderly person cross the street. Sadaqah is viewed as a spiritual investment that streamlines the generous person’s path to success on Earth or Paradise, or both, because in Islam every generous act one performs eventually receives a great reward from Allah.
This pay-it-forward philosophy is described in the numerous passages below:
“Charity does not decrease wealth.”
“Whatever is given in charity will be recorded with The One Who has Full Knowledge of All Things.”
“whatever you spend… will be fully repaid to you.” [Quran 2:272]
“Whatever is spent will return multiplied and Allah will increase it in this world and in the next… those who spend their wealth in the way of Allah [it] is like a seed of grain which grows seven spikes; in each spike is a hundred grains. …Allah multiplies His reward… [Quran 2:261]
“…whatever thing you spend [in his cause] - He will compensate it…” [Quran 34: 39]
“Protect yourself from the Hell-fire even by giving a piece of a date as charity.” [Al-Bukhari]
The Prophet said: “Everyday two angels descent and one of them says, ‘O Allah! Compensate more to the person who gives in charity; while the other angel says, ‘O Allah! Destroy the one who withholds charity.’” [Al-Bukhari]
“The believer’s shade on the Day of Resurrection will be his charity.” (Al-Tirmidhi)
“Charity extinguishes sin as water extinguishes fire.” (Al-Tirmidhi)
For secular me, the most exotic, non-western feature of Muslim charity, generosity, and philosophy is the belief that no one actually possesses anything because everything belongs to Allah. All wealth anyone obtains is just borrowed from “The Most Generous” Allah - giving this wealth to another person is just transferring the gift from Allah. Also, in Islam earthly life is obviously viewed as only temporary, but existence afterwards in Paradise-or-Hell is anticipated as permanent. Thus, what is critical in Islam is never this reality, but only the subsequent destination determined by our behavior here, on Allah’s testing ground.
A far better explanation of this is presented below from the blog prophetsofgod.net:
“We are here in this world as temporary visitors, and our belongings are just entrusted to us by Allah (SWT). When we realize that everything we have belongs to Allah (SWT), we become more mindful of our responsibilities towards His creation. As Muslims, we must appreciate the blessings that Allah (SWT) has bestowed upon us. However, we must also be careful not to be attached to the materialistic aspects of the world. We must always remember that material possessions are temporary and we can’t take them with us to the hereafter. We must use our resources in the way that pleases Allah (SWT) by being charitable, helping the poor, establishing prayer, and fulfilling our other obligations towards our Creator. When we do this, we are using His blessings in the right way and Insha Allah, we will achieve the ultimate reward in the hereafter. In conclusion, understanding and acknowledging that everything belongs to Allah (SWT) is vital in our spiritual journey as Muslims. It reminds us of our responsibilities as His creations and helps us act in a manner that pleases Him. May Allah (SWT) guide us on the straight path and help us to use His blessings in a way that pleases Him. Amen.”
The proclamations above are of course based on verses like the phrases below:
"Whatever is in the heavens and whatever is in the earth is Allah's - Quran 2:284
“Surely, we belong to Allah, and surely, to Him we will return". - Quran, 2:156
“Believe in Allah and His Messenger, and donate from what He has entrusted you with” - Quran, 2:7-11
The Islamic belief system is wildly foreign to human-centered anarchy-socialist materialist atheists like me, but there’s significant common ground between us on the topic of wealth distribution. Anti-capitalists, like Muslims, don’t believe anyone should own wealth all by themselves, as pampered individuals, especially billionaires who either massively extracted it from un-shared resources or hyper-efficiently exploited their wage workers. Both Muslims and “green” anarchists appear to understand the interconnectedness of all nature; we are all “One” if the master is Allah or Gaia or quantum physics.
And finally, global egalitarians and Islamic believers are both advocates of charity towards the disadvantaged, we are similarly striving for a kinder, fairer, more equitable world with social justice and annihilation of caste, class, hunger, disease and poverty.