Why Islam Made ZAKAT Obligatory & Declared WAR on RIBA!

Towards Etirnity

• In today's video, we talked about the Islamic concept of Zakat—a timeless and the only solution to income inequality that fosters compassion and revitalizes the economy. Intro  • Arrival of the zakat system  • Interest system and it's tragedies • Nisab value • wealth tax v/s income tax • zakat decreases crime rate • zakat fights financial difficulties • Meaning of the word zakat • The myth of - " The more I earn, the closer I get to the life of my dreams. • The wealth of the Richest 1% = the wealth of the remaining 99% • Redistribution of wealth from the richest!  • Relationship between the rich and the poor • zakat opens the heart to charity • zakat is from divine revelation 191 #Islam #Zakat #Riba #ObligatoryZakat #WarOnRiba #IslamicFinance #FaithAndWealth #IslamicPrinciples #FinancialEthics #SpiritualWealth #CommunitySupport #WealthDistribution #CharityInIslam #EconomicJustice #GodsCommandments #HarmonyInFinance #SocialResponsibility #FinancialLiteracy #IslamicTeachings

Transcript

00:00What was the longest time you've ever spent without food? 10 hours? 24 hours? That's a serious

00:05difficulty, isn't it? In 2021, the number of people suffering from chronic hunger worldwide

00:10has climbed to 828 million. Having seen all this, thousands of people are wondering the

00:17answer to this question. Why are the poor getting poorer and the rich getting richer?

00:22The richest people in the world. In a 2017 report, Oxfam says that these people's total wealth

00:28is equal to the total wealth of half the world's population. The following year,

00:32half the world's wealth became equal to the wealth of only 26 richest people,

00:36which is even less than the previous year. According to a report by the United Nations,

00:4071% of the world's population lives in countries where income inequality is growing day by day.

00:47And yes, this includes many countries that are identified as developed countries.

00:51A huge portion of society is tense and desperate, like a bomb ready to explode.

00:57But what if I told you that hundreds of years ago, Islam wrote the solution we are desperately

01:02looking for? It is such a solution that, if implemented correctly, would provide that in

01:07some cities there would be no poor people anymore. Therefore, donations would have to go to other

01:12cities that are miles away. Is this really possible? If you're ready for a comprehensive content that

01:18has taken weeks to prepare with comments and insights from experts and researchers, let's begin.

01:27Imagine a country where there are public announcements like, where are the people in debt? Where are the

01:36needy? The orphans? The poor who want to marry? The oppressed? Oh, you who have rights and needs,

01:40come and take your rights. The state officials walk in the streets looking for poor families. This

01:46is not a dream. This is not a story. Such a period has actually happened. We're talking about the early

01:51seven hundreds. Close to the hundredth year after the arrival of the zakat system. The Islamic Khalifa

01:56Umar bin Abdulaziz issued such a degree and made that announcement. What a scene that is far away

02:01from the present day, isn't it? So what exactly is this zakat we're talking about? And how applicable

02:05is it today in this day and age? We'll get to all of that. But first, let's try to figure out the

02:10system that we have now. We are in a dead end that is very difficult to get out of. There are two sentences

02:15that have been ruining our lives all around the world. One of them is, you work and I eat,

02:20which is basically the interest system. The tragedies caused by this system are countless.

02:25Let's analyze this phenomenon with an example. You want to buy a car or a house, but you cannot

02:30afford it. You are someone who can only make a living. Then, with a smiling face, a bank representative

02:35comes and says to you, I'm here to help you. I can give you the money you want in this many installments,

02:40but you will pay it back with this much interest. And thinking that you have no other

02:44option, you sign the contract. Now you're going to work for years to pay back the loan with a high

02:49amount of interest. Just the interest part of the loan in and of itself means extra months of work

02:54for you. Maybe you'll look for additional sources of income and put in much more effort. Probably

02:59your spouse will have to work too. Maybe you'll have to sacrifice the time you'll spend with your

03:02children. And in the meantime, if something goes wrong and you cannot pay the installments on time,

03:07your debt will increase even more. This means more stress and more work for you. And do you know what

03:12happened right before you started going through this long and painful process? The same smiling

03:17bank made a deal with a rich person a few hours before you took that loan. His money has been

03:21invested to earn interest and now it will just increase without doing anything. In just one month,

03:27without any effort, that man will earn interest on the loan that a few families like yours have paid

03:33with great difficulty in maybe months or a year. And in the end, you will realize that you have actually

03:38bought that person's money and that you've been making him richer all this time. How would you feel

03:43in such a situation? Probably you would feel a serious resentment. We live in a world where the

03:48total wealth of 1% is equal to the total wealth of the remaining 99%. So it's pretty obvious that

03:53something is going wrong here and people have accumulated more or less anger against that 1%. And

03:58over time, both material and emotional gaps are being formed between these two groups. Right at this

04:04point, we come across the second sentence that ruins our social lives. So long as I'm full, I don't

04:09care if others die of hunger. Then Islam comes and forbids interest and replaces it with a much better

04:14system, zakat. And by making it obligatory, it closes the huge financial gaps between people. But

04:20what is this zakat system? Let me explain it to you step by step. First of all, there's a concept that is

04:25called nisab value. What is it? Think about all the money you have as savings and your trade goods. Now

04:31remove your debts from that money and goods. And after this, if your savings are above the nisab

04:35value, which is the value equivalent to minimum of 80 grams of gold in your local currency, and if

04:40you have not fallen below this amount for a year, you become responsible to pay zakat. But if you are

04:44below this limit, you become eligible to receive zakat money. So is the amount to give a zakat so high

04:50that it's difficult for people to pay? Actually, no. We're talking about only 1 40th, or 2.5% of the

04:57amount of savings you have. Let's say you have $100,000 and it has been sitting aside for a year.

05:02Giving $2,500 of that amount is nothing for you. Especially when you know that the person you are

05:06giving to is in need, you will feel the spiritual reward for it too. And on top of that, you will

05:11witness that person's joy. So it doesn't take much away from you, but it makes a big difference for

05:16someone who is in need. Zakat is one such measure. It's not a tax, but you can compare it to a wealth tax.

05:25There's not a single country in the West today that has a comprehensive wealth tax. Most taxes are

05:33income-based tax, or product tax, consumer taxes, so VAT and sales tax. Whereas zakat, it's about money

05:43which has not been utilised. So latent money after one year, of course above the Nisab, and that money

05:49has not been utilised on your daily expenses. So your money for your property, your money for your

05:56family, your money for your son's education, your money for your daughter's, you know, wedding or

06:01whatever it may be, that money is spent money and that's not going to be subject to zakat. But zakat is

06:07of course on that wealth which is unspent. So it is a latent wealth tax.

06:14There's also such a surprising beauty in zakat. Many times in the history of Islam,

06:18people who previously received zakat eventually became able to give zakat after some time. Go online

06:23and search for the amount of 80 grams of gold in your currency. So after a certain period,

06:28many families reached an income level where they have this amount of gold as savings. So with the help

06:32of this system, many poor people didn't get poorer, but instead they got richer. In the Islamic sources,

06:38we have information like this. In an Islamic state, zakat was collected from one region and started

06:43being distributed there. But although they still had the money to give, there were no needy people

06:48left. So the remaining zakat was sent to other regions, meaning kilometers away, to other cities.

06:54Can you imagine? In the history of Islam, none of these was a dream. I don't need to give names,

06:59but some of you can guess. They made a calculation about the total wealth of one of the richest people

07:03in the world. It is news from 2 or 3 years ago. And they said with only 2% of this person's wealth,

07:09that is 6 billion dollars, the entire world hunger could be ended. Remember those close to 1 billion

07:15people who are in chronic hunger that we mentioned in the beginning? There wouldn't be such a scene

07:20anymore. And does the 2% sound familiar to you? It's a little less than the zakat percentage,

07:25which is 2.5%. And if we take into account that zakat is given every year, the results become

07:31unimaginable. Now, let's think about it from another point of view. If such financial prosperity is

07:36achieved in a region, wouldn't we also see a decrease in crime rates there? Because behind many crimes,

07:42such as theft, there's somehow a kind of poverty. Of course, it's not always the reason, and this doesn't

07:47excuse those people who commit them. But how can we deny its impact? Imagine there's a criminal,

07:52and his judgment is left to you. You have two options. You either will give that person a

07:57punishment that you think he deserves, which would be a completely reasonable act, or somehow,

08:02you'll go back in time and eliminate the reason that led him to commit this crime. Which one would

08:07you choose? Wouldn't it be better to prevent the crime in the first place if that was possible?

08:12As you see, zakat also fights with the financial difficulties behind many crimes, and indirectly helps

08:17justice and the safety of society. This is the multidimensional peace and prosperity that zakat provides.

08:24As Towards Eternity, we need your support. We are a charity organization that aims to spread

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08:39And get your share from all these good deeds inshaAllah. Donate to Towards Eternity,

08:43and don't miss this golden opportunity.

08:48What happened in 2008 during the recession? What did Obama do? He went to the Congress,

08:52he got 600 or 700 billion dollars, and he deposited them in the accounts of the poorest.

09:01And he didn't say, listen, this is the last amount of money that we have, so try to save it. No,

09:07he said, please take it and spend it. And like that, the economy will roll. If you give $100,

09:13and put it in the pocket of a rich person, you may come after one year to find it in his pocket.

09:19He even forgot about it. He didn't spend it. It didn't benefit anyone. But if you give $100 to a

09:24poor person, within 15 minutes, it vanishes, because he needs. He will buy food, he will buy

09:31clothes, he will buy shoes, he will buy things for his children. So what happens is, he poured it into the

09:37economy. So the more cash you pour into the economy, the more demand on goods. To face this,

09:43you will need to increase production. To increase production, you create jobs. That's what the case.

09:50There was a journalist in the UK who said that wealth has become so distant, you don't even

09:57actually know it exists anymore. The only time you get a glimpse of it is if you open up one of these

10:02lifestyle magazines, and you see how the super rich have got islands and yachts and, you know,

10:08how they live. Apart from that, you know, wealth becomes impossible for you to even imagine.

10:16According to Islam, if you're a person who is in need and cannot change your situation,

10:20you have actually a right to the wealth of a rich person. In the opposite scenario,

10:24meaning if you are rich, the needy people you have never met have a right to your property.

10:28Sounds strange, doesn't it? In the Quran, in the 19th ayah of Surah Al-Zariyat, Allah says,

10:34and from their properties was given the right of the petitioner and the deprived.

10:38Let's understand this ayah better through an example. Let's imagine a region where there is

10:42mass hunger and poverty, and we see 25 people who haven't eaten anything for days. They have become

10:47pale and very weak. Their hunger is clearly visible in their state. A little later, a huge dinner table

10:53is started to be set with a variety of food. Finally, you come and sit at that table, dressed in

10:58beautiful clothes. The table is so big and full of food that it's even enough for a thousand

11:03people. But you do not invite anyone around you. And you ignore those 25 people who ask for help.

11:09As they see you eating with such an appetite, their hunger becomes more and more intense.

11:14After becoming full, you tell your servants to pack up the remaining food that can feed 999 people

11:20and leave that place. It would be a really annoying scene, wouldn't it? Wouldn't the hunger and hardship

11:25of those 25 hungry people around you be manifested in your food and wealth as dirt? A wealth that is

11:30seemingly clean but spiritually dirty. This is where the meaning of the word zakat showed itself. One

11:36of the meanings of this word that is repeatedly mentioned in the Quran is to purify, that is to

11:41clean. In the sense that it's an obligation that cleans the person's wealth when it's given and leaves

11:46it unclean when it's not given. All the hardships that are caused by poverty in the world, hunger,

11:51sufferings, deprivations, crimes, spiritual difficulties, tears, etc. Each of these turns

11:57into dirt on the wealth of the people who ignore those sufferings. When a person gives his zakat,

12:02it's as if he is saying, I am aware of this situation and I am doing my part at a minimum level.

12:07In reality, he is inviting those 25 people to his table which could feed 1000 people, meaning he is

12:14helping 2.5% of them. In the world of trials, just as the body is given as a trust and a mana to the humans,

12:20the family to the father and the baby to the mother, the poor are left in the care of the rich people.

12:26In Suratul Ma'un, Allah criticizes and exposes the crimes of some rich people who doesn't fulfill this trust.

12:32In the second and third verses Allah says about them,

12:35That is the one who pushes aside the orphan and does not encourage the feeding of the poor.

12:40One of the biggest problems with the system we grew up in is that after a while, something that should

12:45be a means becomes a goal. What do I mean by that? The luxurious lives we have seen since childhood

12:50have encouraged us to constantly want more. Our perceptions and the way we look at the world

12:55have been shaped to always focus on earning more. Then we went into business life and said,

13:00The more I earn, the closer I get to life in my dreams. First of all, let's make this clear.

13:06There is nothing wrong with people gaining wealth and Islam does not forbid us to do so,

13:10as long as it is through permissible ways. But the system we have been exposed to

13:14has made some of us extremely greedy. Money is normally a tool that we use to buy things or

13:19spend it for a purpose, isn't it? But for some people, making money itself has become the ultimate

13:24purpose. This goal drives them to save up more and more. Then 30-40 years pass and he realizes that

13:30his whole life has been spent guarding an enormous wealth that he cannot finish spending even if he

13:36wants to. A wealth that he even forgot that existed. And the people around him are thinking about what will

13:41happen to all this money after his death and making calculations in their minds. On the other side,

13:46there is a totally different world. In the city where that extremely rich person lives,

13:51there is a mother whose husband had died and she was left with her children. She is trying to figure

13:56out how to take care of them, how to provide for them. She is in a very difficult situation and needs

14:00support. There is a father whose business and trade had failed and he became bankrupt. He is so hopeless

14:06that he is now thinking of suicide. There are people who cannot get out of their debts.

14:11There are people who had been cheated, robbed, stolen from, who are in a desperate situation.

14:16Haven't you ever heard of people who have to take care of their old parents? They have

14:20regular expenses that need to be covered, such as medicines. These are not things that only happen

14:25in movies. There are people who lost their homes in earthquakes, people whose properties were destroyed

14:30by fire or flood. There are starving people living in Africa. On the other hand, we have this data.

14:36Wealth of the richest 1% of the world's population is equal to the wealth of the remaining 99%.

14:43Don't you also think that the difficulties these people go through taint, pollute the properties of

14:48those who just keep accumulating wealth in their accounts and don't care about other people?

14:53Your attitude has to be that these poor people have a right on me. If I had more money, I would give

15:01them more. So they are not failures. And sometimes the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, he would

15:07honor the poor and the weak in such a way that if they gave a small amount of charity, he would spread

15:14that charity those few dates over the big amount of wealth that the rich people were giving. And he would

15:19say, this is the barakah. This is where blessing comes from. So it is a part of the sunnah of the

15:25prophet to love the poor.

15:31I came across a headline on a very famous discussion forum website. It was asking a very interesting

15:35question. What would happen if we redistributed the world's 1% wealth back to the remaining 99%

15:42as a one-time reset? Let's go out on the street and tell people about this idea and say to them,

15:47there's a button in front of you. If you press it, this redistribution will happen. If you walked

15:52around all day, we probably wouldn't find anyone who wouldn't press it. Unless we come across one

15:57of those 1% of course. There would even be people who would press it before the question was completed.

16:02And what would you do? Remember the dinner table example I mentioned earlier? If I don't invite those

16:07people, they will feel distant towards me. And rightly so. They might even hold a grudge against me. And as a

16:12result of this, my insensitivity towards them might increase. And ignoring them can even become

16:17normalized for me. Over time, this can lead me to a moral collapse. And as a consequence,

16:22the society that needs to be in unity will be divided into two. Let's think about two types of

16:27scenes from history. The first type is from the French Revolution or the Russian Communist

16:31Revolution that you saw in history lessons. They brought big changes, but at the same time,

16:36they are very big historical tragedies that resulted in the bloodshed of countless people.

16:40The second type of scene, on the other hand, is the state decree that we talked about in the

16:44beginning. When the Islamic State made announcements in the streets because there were no needy people

16:48left to take care of. The reason for both scenarios to happen is the relationship between the rich and

16:53the poor. But in the first case, there's hatred and anger. While in the other, there's mutual respect,

16:59compassion, and love. While the situation is like this, who can deny that the zakat system is one of

17:04the things we need the most? At this point, you might think that if there was such a system in Islam,

17:09and positive results were seen, prosperity emerged after it was implemented,

17:13then why didn't any other state come up with a similar system? I mean, doesn't it always happen

17:17like this? Someone develops a system or a technology that works, and over time, other states start using

17:22the same system too. But I don't know if it was because of prejudice against Islam or love for wealth,

17:27it was not implemented. But rather, interest system has become more common.

17:31If zakat is practiced the way it should be practiced, zakat, first of all, changes our

17:38view toward the wealth, toward the wealth that we possess. So there are benefits of zakat that

17:44are immediate, instantaneous, the moment to become a Muslim, or you're a good Muslim,

17:49and you realize you have to pay zakat. And so you give zakat. Your attitude toward the wealth that is

17:55remaining, that is yours, changes. If it doesn't change, you haven't given zakat properly. You need

18:01to give zakat of your zakat. Because zakat means now, I have given the right of the poor in my wealth.

18:07But then it opens the heart to charity, because I see now there's maybe, I have more wealth,

18:12and this person needs more, or these people need more. So all of a sudden, your relationship to

18:17people is one that I have this wealth, which is simply an amanah, it's a trust that Allah has given

18:26it to me. And the best thing I can do that would make me the happiest is if I spend it on people

18:33who deserve it most.

18:37Imagine a person coming into the world centuries ago, in a society far from civilization, in Arabia at the

18:43time of Cahidiya. He doesn't know how to read and write, and receives no worldly education. And the

18:48same person brings a book called the Quran. And the concept of zakat and the prohibition of interest,

18:53which we have been talking about, are just two of the rules of that book. But they bring solutions to

18:58many difficult problems of humanity. They solve poverty, removes hatred and arrogance in society,

19:04and bring brotherhood. They also lead people to charity and revive the economy. When we look at

19:08all the efforts that were put in by the people who are called experts in this field over centuries,

19:13we see that they have never been able to come up with a system even close to the one brought by

19:18this unlettered person. Let's bring together 100 of the most successful economies of today, and let

19:23them work for years. Can they come up with a system that comes close to this? And can they make

19:28people practice it in such an effective way for hundreds of years? I don't think so. All of this

19:34clearly shows that this cannot be a man-made system, and that it can only be from divine revelation.

19:40Time is passing. Centuries are passing. But Islam is getting younger and younger. Day by day, the value

19:46of its rules is understood and appreciated better. Every day, it shows more and more clearly how it's

19:52in accordance with human nature. And therefore, it can only have come from the creator of all human

19:58beings and the entire universe. And the choice of either ignoring or accepting it is left to us.

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