The Wisdom In Zakah – Ramadan Series

Hi,

everyone.

After the prayer, the next pillar of Islam is, as everybody always struggles to translate the Zika. Some people call it attacks, it's not really a tax, some people call it ALMS or charity. And that's partially true to the purpose behind this

is to take excess wealth that has been sitting around from rich, wealthy Muslims, and to redistribute it to the poor.

And so there's two main conditions for the payment of the cat. And that is that it has to be above a certain threshold. So people who have very little or not enough, are not going to be required to pay as a cat.

The second requirement is that that threshold, that minimum threshold has been satisfied for over a lunar year. For example, if the threshold for paying the car was $5,000, then you would have had had to have in excess of $5,000 continuously for an entire year, in order for you to be obligated to pay the cat, the name of the car, there's tremendous wisdom in what Allah subhanaw taala called this, he didn't call it a tax, which kinds of that word makes us want to try to get away from it or escape it if we can. And he didn't call it charity, which focuses maybe more on the person who's receiving it. Allah subhanaw taala called it Zika.

And the car has to do with purification.

And there's wisdom behind this because purification happens in a couple of ways. First of all, the money that you get is purified, which shows that we don't have any problem in Islam with people making money. But there's responsibility that comes along with being wealthy. And so there's a cap purifies everything that you make, and everything that you store up, it makes sure that you're paying your fair share.

It's also called Zika. Because it doesn't just purify the money. It also purifies you the one who holds the money.

Because money is a very tricky thing. Some people say it's the root of all evil, and Islam does not teach that. But there is something dangerous about money. And that's when we get greedy with it, when we're not satisfied with what we have. When we want more and more and more. And we're afraid that it's going to go away and leave us. And so people might be reluctant, despite no matter how wealthy they are, they might be reluctant to pay soccer, because they're afraid that maybe next year, they're not going to have enough to go around. Maybe I need to have a savings account, to backup my savings account to backup my savings account, the backup my savings account, this

mentality, you find people like this. So what does a cat do? So cap purifies the individual from their greed. And from their steadiness. It tells them in a very clear way, here's the specific amount that you have to pay at a certain time. And then once you've done that, you've paid your fair share, and you've cured yourself from your stinginess and your greed. There's an important point about Zika. And part of the wisdom behind it, that it's something that is obligatory, but it's not something that has some sort of government mechanism for enforcement. Every single person is required to take account of themselves and to pay as a cat themselves. There's nobody coming around

and checking the banking accounts, or automatically withdrawing from your paycheck every month. But you have to take care of it on your own. And that makes perfect sense. Because if this act of the QA is actually going to purify you that it has to be something that you choose to do, it can't be forced upon you by somebody else. There's 1/3 and final way that that names a cat is perfectly suited for this act of worship, this tremendously wise pillar of a snap. And that is it actually purifies the poor of the community as well. Imagine you're in a masjid and you are lining up to pray.

And you've got one person in the row of prayer who they have a Rolex watch

around their wrist. And they have an Armani suit. And they are very crisp and clean. And they drive a fancy car, when they go home, and they go home to their big house in the suburbs. Imagine that person is praying next to the poorest person in the community. The person who's got patches on their clothes or holes in their clothes, the person who isn't able to find a shower regularly to shower in the person who doesn't know when their next meal, where their next meal is going to come from. Imagine the the spiritual trial that the poor person undergoes when he comes to the machine and he stands in prayer next to this other individual. Imagine how tempting it would be. For him to be

jealous for him to not be content with what Allah subhanaw taala has decreed for him as a cow also purifies him. Because if he knows that that person next to him, the rich man is paying his car locally in the community. And that person is receiving his a car from the local community that he knows that that individual has paid his fair share, and that he has nothing in his heart against him. So CA is an amazing pillar of Islam, and it's full of wisdom for all to see