Zakat and Social Justice

by David Deutsch

I am probably the last person who should be writing about Zakat, charity, one of the five pillars of Islam. For starters, I’m a Jew, and quite a bad one. While Jews are supposed to fast to atone for our sins on our High Holiday, Yom Kippur, I fast between meals. And snacks. My family’s Passover dinners are only slightly more mature than a pre-teen Twilight: New Moon slumber party. To make matters worse, I am by no means an Islamic scholar, never having taken courses on Islamic history, religion, culture or anything. I have a bunch of Muslim friends, and that’s about it.

So why is a bad secular Jew who has never studied Islam writing about Zakat? Because advocating for social justice means standing up for, and understanding, those who are oppressed. And right now Muslim Americans are among the most oppressed minorities in our country. Refusing to understand Muslims and their contemporary American experience runs contrary to the lessons of the Holocaust—not to mention the story of Passover—that as long as one of us is oppressed, none of us is truly free. Also, by explaining one of Islam’s pillars, I hope to engage participants on all sides of U.S.-Islamic relations, especially in light of the nontroversy surrounding the Park 51 community center project in lower Manhattan, which has apparently become a proxy war between some Jews, Muslims and Christians, all of who think they have the best invisible friend.

See what I mean about the bad Jew thing?

Anyway, let’s discuss Zakat. As I stated earlier, it’s one of the five pillars of Islam. The other four are:

• Shahada, or profession of faith;
• Salah, or prayers;
• Sawm, fasting during the month of Ramadan; and
• Hajj, a pilgrimage to Mecca, home of the Masjid al-Haram Mosque.

the name of Allah, Arabic calligraphy by Ottoman artist Hâfız Osman

(Astute readers will note that Blowing Up Infidels is not among the five pillars.)

Zakat requires that everyone donate at least 2.5% of their annual earnings to the needy. This is not some optional add-on facet of the religion; as a Muslim, you must give alms.

In 2003 I traveled to Morocco with a couple of close friends for a wedding. The spirit of Zakat was ubiquitous. On our first day, we snuck into a tiny restaurant in Casablanca. While we munched on rotisserie chicken, rice and French bread for a whopping U.S. $2, a barrage of about 30 Moroccans angrily burst into the restaurant, pinning one person to the back wall. To say this was unnerving is understatement. Our trip took place only days after Moroccans were found to have executed the train bombings in Spain; I thought we were in the midst of a terrorist attack.

After the dust settled, we found out what happened: one patron left the restaurant without paying, thus prompting the drag-back. The restaurant owner said the thief should have said he could not afford the meal before eating. He would have received it for free. Try getting that response from a TGIF in Irvine.

A couple of days later, I saw a hunched-over old man hand money to one even older and more hunched. The latter did not ask for assistance, even as he labored up a small flight of stairs; the slightly younger man simply walked over, handed him some money and walked away, seeking no gratitude. Boy, I thought, these Muslims are so scary.

Another example of Zakat took place a few days later at a different restaurant. Since my friend Linda spoke some French (Moroccans speak French and Arabic) she served as our translator. But she was not fluent, and she accidentally told our waiter that we couldn’t pay for our food. Upon hearing this, he insisted we eat for free. We quickly cleared the miscommunication and paid for our food. The waiter also invited us back to his house for dinner. His gestures were 100% sincere. Again, at no time did he try to blow us up.

Here’s another good example. There were about 30 Americans staying in Meknes for the wedding. One day, the Moroccan police knocked on the bride’s door and asked why so many Americans were in town. Concerned for our safety, they assigned a detail to escort us around the city. Like virtually every other Moroccan we encountered, these police officers were beyond friendly.

I suspect none of this would be startling to an Islamic scholar.

Make no mistake: the threat of radical Islamic terrorism is real. The Moroccan police were assigned to protect us for a reason. And, as a Jew, these terrorists are hardly my friends. But the overwhelming majority of Muslims want to live their lives free of conflict and by their God’s rules, which means fulfilling the five pillars of their religion, including Zakat. Sadly, charity has become a radical idea, where giving money supposedly hurts the recipient by providing a disincentive to work. In contemporary American society, greed is considered a moral good.

Perhaps if we could all take a deep breath and learn about the good and bad aspects of all religions, we could begin a dialogue. And maybe the Park 51 community center could teach New Yorkers, and the rest of us, about the sacred value of Zakat.

Allah forbid.

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