Boreal
Remembering Uzza
If Islam Was Explained to Me in a Pub
Ten Murders in One Night and When Charity was Extortion
Bob:
Did the Prophet at least keep his promise not to kill anybody?
Uzza: No. You did not mock Muhammad if you had no protectors and you valued your life. Remember Badr. And you did not leave Islam for the same reason. Those ordered to be killed on sight had done one or the other or both.
Gerry: Who were these doomed individuals?
Uzza: One was a fellow by the name of Khatal[278]. He had once been Muhammad’s collector of God’s fee for purifying your property, the Zakat[279], the obligatory charity, but later abandoned Islam and returned to Mecca. He was one of six men and four women put to death on Muhammad's orders.
Gerry: Obligatory charity! How can charity be obligatory? Isn't charity, by definition, voluntary?
Uzza: In your world, perhaps.
Archie: Yeah, not in your bizarro world where logic is illogical, wrong is right, good is bad.
Uzza: Bizarro world? I do not understand.
Gerry: Bizarro was Superman's opposite. He lived on a "bizarro world" where up was down, left was right, go meant stop, goodbye meant hello... Bizarro is a term often used to describe a person or thing, or perhaps a god, who uses a twisted form of logic.
Uzza: That is not the world people like me and like my father before me have embraced.
Archie: Sorry, I didn't mean you personally.
Bob: Who decided how much of this Zakat you paid?
Uzza: Muhammad. He even wrote a letter before he died for people in the newly conquered territories detailing how much Zakat was owed on livestock such as cattle and goats[280]. You even paid Zakat on goods you intended to trade[281].
Gerry: A sales tax.
Uzza: I guess so.
Bob: And who did you pay this Zakat to?
Uzza: To Muhammad directly[282] or via Zakat collectors[283] like the unfortunate Khatal.
Archie: What happened to you if you did not contribute to the voluntary charity?
Uzza: You could expect a visit from a deputation of holy warriors who would make you an offer you could not refuse[284].
Archie: That’s extortion!
Uzza: If you say so, but Islamists would not agree.
Gerry: Extortion is "obtaining something through force or threats." Archie has a point.
Uzza: A voluntary charitable contribution demanded by God and enforced by those who believe in him cannot be extortion.
Archie: Did you just say voluntary? I thought you said this Zakat was mandatory?
Uzza: Nowhere in the Koran does Allah make charity mandatory. It was Muhammad’s idea and may explain why, after his death, some believers thought they could avoid paying the Zakat. But they thought wrong[285].
Archie: I get it. Charity was not extortion until the Prophet made it so.
Uzza: You can believe that if you want. It does not matter. The Zakat is compulsory under the Sharia. Get used to it, for you will soon be paying it, and gladly.
Bob: Will we still have to pay income tax, if we pay the Zakat?
Uzza: Probably. The Zakat may have made the Ayatollahs into billionaires, but the Iranians still have to pay regular income tax. They do, I believe, get to deduct what the clergy extorts; I mean collects in God's name.
Bob: You said six men and four women were put to death on Muhammad's orders. Apart from this guy Khatal, what did these other people do that rubbed the Prophet the wrong way?
Uzza: About the other men, I do not know, but two of the women assassinated were singers in Khatal’s household who, years earlier as young girls, had sang satirical songs about this Messenger of Allah. This may, in part, explain Muhammad's pathological aversion to women singers.
Archie: This guy had issues.
Uzza: Muhammad said a harbinger of the end of times would be women singers everywhere.
Gerry: So, it was not simply because they made fun of him as children that he had them killed.
Uzza: Muhammad equated women singing as an invitation to lust and as a distraction from worshipping Allah.
Archie: And we would not want that.
Footnotes
[278] Narrated Anas bin Malik:
Allah's Apostle entered Mecca in the year of its Conquest wearing an Arabian helmet on his head and when the Prophet took it off, a person came and said, "Ibn Khatal is holding the covering of the Ka'ba (taking refuge in the Ka'ba)."
The Prophet said, "Kill him."
Bukhari 29.72
[279] The Zakat is God's fee for purifying your property, and the best property you can hoard are virtuous women.
Narrated Abdullah Ibn Abbas:
When this verse was revealed: "[9:34 O believers, many of the rabbis and monks devour the property of the people unjustly and bar others from the Path of Allah.] And those who hoard gold and silver [and do not spend them in Allah’s Path, announce to them a very painful punishment.]"
The Muslims were grieved about it.
Umar said: I shall dispel your care. He, therefore, went and said: Prophet of Allah, your Companions were grieved by this verse.
The Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him) said: Allah has made zakat obligatory simply to purify your remaining property, and He made inheritances obligatory that they might come to those who survive you.
Umar then said: Allah is most great.
He (the Prophet) then said to him: Let me inform you about the best a man hoards; it is a virtuous woman who pleases him when he looks at her, obeys him when he gives her a command, and guards his interests when he is away.
Abu Dawud 9.1660
[280] Narrated Abdullah ibn Umar:
The Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him) wrote a letter about sadaqah (zakat) but he died before he could send it to his governors. He had kept it with his sword. So Abu Bakr acted upon it till he died, and then Umar acted upon it till he died. It contained: "For five camels one goat is to be given; for ten camels two goats are to be given; for fifteen camels three goats are to be given; for twenty camels four goats are to be given; for twenty-five to thirty-five camels a she-camel in her second year is to be given.
If the number exceeds by one up to seventy camels, a she-camel in her fourth year is to be given; if they exceed by one up to seventy-five camels, a she-camel in her fifth year is to be given; if they exceed by one up to ninety camels, two she-camels in their third year are to be given; if they exceed by one up to one hundred and twenty, two she-camels in their fourth year are to be given. If the camels are more than this, a she-camel in her fourth year is to be given for every fifty camels, and a she-camel in her third year is to be given for every forty camels.
For forty to one hundred and twenty goats one goat is to be given; if they exceed by one up to two hundred, two goats are to be given. If they exceed by one up to three hundred, three goats are to be given; if the goats are more than this, one goat for every hundred goats is to be given. Nothing is payable until they reach one hundred. Those which are in one flock are not to be separated, and those which are in separate flocks are not be brought together from fear of sadaqah (zakat).
Regarding that which belongs to two partners, they can make claims for restitution from each other with equity. An old goat and a defective one are not to be accepted as sadaqah (zakat)."
Az-Zuhri said: When the collector comes, the goats will be apportioned into three flocks: one containing bad, the second good, and the third moderate. The collector will take zakat from the moderate. Az-Zuhri did not mention the cows (to be apportioned in three flocks).
Abu Dawud 9.1563
[281] Narrated Samurah ibn Jundub:
The Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him) used to order us to pay the sadaqah (zakat) on what we prepared for trade.
Abu Dawud 9.1557
[282] All Zakat collected was taken directly to Muhammad who counted it and branded what had been paid in livestock, the most common currency in which the obligatory charity was paid.
Narrated Abu Humaid Al-Sa'idi:
Allah's Apostle (p.b.u.h) appointed a man called Ibn Al-Lutbiya, from the tribe of Al-Asd to collect Zakat from Bani Sulaim. When he returned, (after collecting the Zakat) the Prophet checked the account with him.
Bukhari 24.576
Narrated Anas:
Bin Malik took 'Abdullah bin Abu Talha to Allah's Apostle to perform Tahnik for him. (Tahnik was a custom among the Muslims that whenever a child was born they used to take it to the Prophet who would chew a piece of date and put a part of its juice in the child's mouth). I saw the Prophet and he had an instrument for branding in his hands and was branding the camels of zakat.
Bukhari 24.578
[283] If Muhammad’s decrees got the respect reserved for revealed truths, Zakat today would still be collected the old-fashioned way today. Forget the mail, let alone electronic transfers.
Narrated Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-As:
The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: There is to be no collecting of sadaqah (zakat) from a distance, nor must people who own property remove it far away, and their sadaqahs are to be received in their dwelling.
Abu Dawud 9.1587
When the tribe of the Bani al-Mustaliq 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 Dirar (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.
Tafsir Moududi-Surah 49. Al-Hujurat, Ayaat 6 To 8
[285] 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