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Triumph of the Irrational

Five Perplexing Pillars  - Zakat

A tenet of Islam is that “the angel Gabriel revealed the five pillars of Islam to Muhammad in the Qur'an, although they are not in one place but scattered throughout Islam's sacred text.” In my research I found no one to take credit for rooting them out and establishing them as the five mandatory obligations of Islam.

Four of the five pillars are all about worshipping a god who cannot be worshipped enough, therefore, that such obligations would be found in the Koran is to be expected, but that is not the case for the Zakat. The Zakat has nothing to do with worshipping Allah; it is a tax that you cannot avoid paying as made obvious by its oxymoronic appellation of “obligatory charity.”

2:277 Verily, those who believe, do good works, perform the prayers and give the alms-tax, shall find their reward with their Lord. They have nothing to fear, and they shall not grieve.

A tax, as Allah makes abundantly clear, to be paid to the poor to allow them to join the fight in His Cause, a war started by His spokesman to make believers of all the Arabs.

2:273 [Alms is] for the poor who are held up [fighting] in the Way of Allah, and thus cannot travel in the land. The ignorant think they are rich because they are too proud [to beg]. But you can recognize them by their mark. They do not importune people for alms. Whatever good you spend is known to Allah.

The absurdness of the Zakat as a pillar of Islam also stems from its origins. It actually started as a form of extortion to finance Muhammad’s campaigns to fight with his “people”, the Arabs of the Peninsula, until they converted or were killed.

Narrated Abu Huraira:

Allah's Apostle said, "I have been ordered to fight with the people till they say, 'None has the right to be worshipped but Allah.'"

Bukhari 52.196

That it was extortion is evident in Moududi’s explanation as to why the following verse was sent down, probably after Allah sanctioned the extortion by making it a tax to help the poor participate in Muhammad’s war on His Behalf.

49:6 O believers, if a sinner brings you a piece of news, make sure you do not cause some people distress unwittingly, and so regret subsequently what you have done.

Moududi:

Most of the commentators have expressed the view that this verse was sent down concerning Walid bin Uqbah bin Abi Mu'ait. Its background is this: When the tribe of the Bani alMustaliq embraced Islam, the Holy Prophet sent Walid bin Uqbah to collect the zakat from them. When he arrived in their territory, he became scared due to some reason and without visiting the people of the tribe returned to Madinah and complained to the Holy Prophet that they had refused to pay the zakat and had even wanted to kill him.

On hearing this the Holy Prophet became very angry and he made up his mind to dispatch a contingent to punish those people.

In the meantime, the chief of the Bani al-Mustaliq, Harith bin Dirarm(father of Juwairiyah, wife of the Holy Prophet), arrived at the head of a deputation, and submitted: "By God, we did not at all see Walid; therefore, there could be no question of refusing to pay the zakat and wanting to kill him …

At this, this verse was sent down.

Muhammad not only put the fear of what his men would do to you if you did not pay up, but also the fear of God.

Narrated Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-As:

A woman came to the Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him) and she was accompanied by her daughter who wore two heavy gold bangles in her hands.

He said to her: Do you pay zakat on them?

She said: No.

He then said: Are you pleased that Allah may put two bangles of fire on your hands?

Thereupon she took them off and placed them before the Prophet (peace be upon him) saying: They are for Allah and His Apostle.

Abu Dawud 9.1558

Please note that Muhammad extorted more Zakat from the mother and daughter than what he was entitled by his own rules.

Narrated Mu'awiyah ibn Haydah:

The Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him) said: For forty pasturing camels, one she-camel in her third year is to be given. The camels are not to be separated from reckoning. He who pays zakat with the intention of getting reward will be rewarded.

If anyone evades zakat, we shall take half the property from him as a due from the dues of our Lord, the Exalted. There is no share in it (zakat) of the descendants of Muhammad (peace be upon him).

Abu Dawud 9.1570

The early Muslims not only did not consider the Zakat a pillar of Islam, but also considered the tax, which they paid directly to Muhammad, to have lapsed with his passing and the successful forced conversion of the “people” to Islam.

The covetous Abu Bakr, who would succeed Muhammad as leader of the believers, i.e., caliph would have none of it. The man who disinherited his friend’s cherished daughter Fatima, the only one to give him grandsons and heir to his estate of Fadak (Appendix: Khaibar), appears to have been responsible for elevating a war tax to a pillar of Islam by declaring Muslims who refused to pay him the Zakat, apostates, and declaring a war that would see all those who refused slaughtered.

Narrated Abu Huraira:

When Allah's Apostle died and Abu Bakr became the caliph some Arabs renegade (reverted to disbelief) (Abu Bakr decided to declare war against them).

Umar, said to Abu Bakr, "How can you fight with these people although Allah's Apostle said, 'I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight the people till they say: "None has the right to be worshipped but Allah, and whoever said it then he will save his life and property from me except on trespassing the law (rights and conditions for which he will be punished justly), and his accounts will be with Allah."

Abu Bakr said, "By Allah! I will fight those who differentiate between the prayer and the Zakat as Zakat is the compulsory right to be taken from the property (according to Allah's orders) By Allah! If they refuse to pay me even a she-kid which they used to pay at the time of Allah's Apostle, I would fight with them for withholding it."

Then Umar said, "By Allah, it was nothing, but Allah opened Abu Bakr's chest towards the decision (to fight) and I came to know that his decision was right."

Bukhari 23.483

Towards the end of what became known as the War of the Apostates, more than 7,000 Arabs, the vast majority Muslims is assumed, were surrounded and shown no mercy.