WHY INCLINATION OF 'INFAQ'?

Now ponder over this point that why Allah has adopted this method to arouse in man the spirit of beneficence and generosity? The more you think over this problem the more you will get an insight into the pure quality of Islamic teaching, and your heart will increasingly testify that such a superb type of inculcation can emanate only from God and from no one else.

1      Man happens to be selfish

You know that man by his very nature is inclined to be unjust and foolish. His perception is narrow. He cannot look very far. He is short sighted. Too big and lofty ideas can hardly find place in his mind. He happens to be selfish, and his brain cannot entertain a wide conception even of selfish interest. He is also hasty.

"Man is made of haste." (A1-Qur'an 21: 37)

He wants to see quickly the result and benefit of everything he does, and only that result and benefit are substantial to him which he gains quickly and which he sees in visible form. His vision fails to envisage far-reaching results. He can hardly comprehend those benefits which take place on large scale and whose range extends over a long period. In fact, in most cases these potentialities are not grasped at all.

This is a natural weakness of man compelling him to look for personal benefit in everything and that too which is on a small scale, is quickly available and concretely felt by him. He declaims "whatever I have earned or whatever I have inherited from my father and grandfather belongs to me and nobody is a sharer in it. It must be spent exclusively on my needs, on my desires, on my comfort and on my corporeal enjoyment. Or at least, it should serve to raise my name, fame and honour. I should get some title, some high office, people should bow before me and I should be talked about. If I do not achieve any of these objectives, then why should I part with my money ? If any orphan is dying of hunger nearby or if he is loafing about, why should I take care of him? He has a claim over his father who should have left something for his children or an insurance policy. If any widow in my neighbourhood is passing her days in trouble, what is to me? Her husband ought to have done something for her. If any wayfarer has lost his way, what has it to do with me? Why did that fool come out of his house without making previous arrangement? If any body is in distress, let him be so. God has given him also the same hands and feet as mine. He should fulfil his own needs. Why should I help him? If I am to give him anything, it will be in the form of loan and that too with interest because my money is not so useless. I would have utilized it for building a house or for buying a car or for investment in a profitable project. The borrower also earn some profit out of it. Then why should I not take some portion from that profit.

2.     Results of selfish mentality

A wealthy man of this selfish mentality will first behave like a serpent sitting on his treasure, and, secondly if at all he will spend anything, it will be for his personal aggrandisement only. He will not spend a pie from his pocket, and if at all he helped a poor man, unless there is some benefit in it, it will not be a sincere type of help. He will, in fact, fleece that poor man and will realize from him much more than what he had given him. If he gives anything to a destitute he will take half his life out of him by claiming to have showered thousands of favours on him and will insult and humiliate him so much that no vestige of self-respect will be left in him. If he takes part in some national work, he will first of all see to what extent he will be personally benefited from it. All such works which will not bring him any personal gain will not solicit his help. What are the results of this mentality? Its results are fatal not only for collective life but ultimately for that person himself, who due to narrow-mindedness and ignorance, considers them beneficial. When such a mentality operates among a people, wealth starts accumulating in a few hands and renders countless persons resourceless. The rich people continue to wring out money on the strength of their money and the life of poor people becomes more and more hard every day. A poverty-stricken society breeds various kinds of evils. The physical strength of its members declines. Diseases become rampant. Their working capacity and productivity of wealth dwindles. Ignorance increases among them. Their morals deteriorate. They take to crimes to satisfy their needs. And ultimately, a position is reached when they resort to loot and plunder. Riots take place on a wide-spread scale. Wealthy persons are murdered. Their houses are burnt and ransacked and such a wholesale destruction takes place that no trace of the rich people is left in the world.

3.     Individual welfare lies in collective welfare

If you ponder you will come to know that in reality every single person's welfare is bound up with the well-being of that community in whose sphere he lives. If you help your brethren with the wealth you possess, then that wealth will circulate and come back to you with many of its benefits, and if you by way of selfishness keep it to yourself or spend it for your own personal benefit, it will ultimately get reduced. For example, if you bring up an orphan child and after giving him education enable him to become an earning member of the community, it will mean you have contributed to the wealth of the community as a whole and you, being a member of it, will also somehow become a sharer of that wealth though you may not be knowing that this share has reached you through the ability of that particular orphan whom you had helped. But if due to selfishness and narrow-mindedness you say: " Why should I help him? His father should have left something for him", then he will loaf about and become a wash-out. He will never develop the ability to contribute anything to the wealth of the community by his labour. In fact, it will not be surprising if he becomes a professional criminal and commits burglary in your own house. This would mean that by making a member of your community a wash-out, a loafer and a criminal, you not only harmed him but harmed yourself also. Taking an analogy from this very example if you cast a wide glance you will see that one who spends money selflessly for the good of the community allows his wealth apparently to go out of his pocket but, outside, it continues to expand and flourish till ultimately it goes back with countless benefits to the pocket from which it once came out. And the man who keeps money to himself due to selfishness and narrow-mindedness, and does not spend it on the good of the community apparently preserves his wealth, increases it by taking usury, but in reality decreases his wealth by his foolishness and works up his destruction with his own hands. This is the secret which Allah has described thus:

"Allah has blighted usury and made almsgiving fruitful." (Al-Qur'an 2: 276)

"That which you give in usury in order that it may increase on (other) people's property has not increase with Allah: but that which you give in charity, seeking Allah's countenance, has increased manifold." (Al-Qur'an 30: 39)

But man's narrow-mindedness and ignorance prevent him from comprehending this reality and from acting according. to its spirit. He is a slave of things of which he is materially conscious. He sees the money which jingles in his pocket. The wealth that is increasingly registered in his cash book impresses him with its upward trend but that which goes out of his hands cannot be seen by him as to where it is increasing, how it is increasing, to what extent is it increasing and when will it come back to him with profits and benefits. He only understands this much that so much money has gone away from him and that too for good. Till today man has not been able to unravel this knot of ignorance by his own intelligence or effort. This is the condition everywhere in the world. On one side is the domain of capitalist where all enterprises are run on usurious system, and where troubles and worries are daily increasing in spite of heaps of wealth. On the other hand, a group has emerged into being increasing adherents whose hearts are aflame with jealousy and who, along with plundering the coffers of capitalist, is bent upon knocking down the whole basis of human culture and civilization.

Solution of Problems

This complicated situation has been resolved by that Sagacious and Prudent Being the name of Whose Holy Book is Qur'an. Faith in Allah and faith in the Last Day constitute the key to this lock. If a man affirms faith in Allah and realizes that the real Lord of the treasures of the earth and heaven is God, and the administration of human affairs is in reality in the hands of God only, and with God is the account of even the minutest atom, and the final reward and punishment of all good and bad deeds of man will be awarded by Him in the Hereafter precisely according to computation, then it will become quite easy for him to put trust in God instead of relying on his own view-point. He will spend his wealth as directed by God leaving the question of profit and loss from it entirely to Him. Whatever he will spend with this firm conviction, it will be in fact a present to God Himself. Its account also will he entered in the cash book of God. Though nobody may know in the world about his kind deeds, but God will certainly become aware of it. And no matter if this favour of his is admitted by anybody or not, God will surely know and acknowledge it. And when a promise of reward has been made by God, He will most surely reward it either in the Hereafter or both in this world and the Hereafter.