By: Sabri Khalil
Summary
Islam establishes profound moral, equalitarian, and legal imperatives to support the poor, grounding communal and individual duties in Qur’anic texts and prophetic teachings, obliging redistribution, justice, and compassion toward the downtrodden.
From the social standpoint of Islam, supporting society’s poor is a constructive value. Three foundational sources eminently manifest Islam’s unremitting admonition to its adherents to uphold this core ideal.
1. Islam puts forward a set of foundational concepts and moral values for supporting the poor.
2. A wealth of Scriptural Texts exhort Muslims to stand ever on the side of the poor.
3. Islam lays down a set of statutory rules to actualize communal and individual support for the poor.
Let us take a closer look at these three sources of material and psycho-social backing for the needy in Islam.
I. The Four Precepts That Vindicate Sustaining The Poor
1. The Right to Defend Oneself Against Wrongdoing (Al-Inti sâr Ba’d Al-ulm) A number of âyât, or sign-verses, of the Quran establish the human right of self-defense against transgression.
Allah states, for instance, in Sûrat Al-Shûrâ: But as to those who choose to defend themselves, after having been wronged, there is no cause whatever for blame against them. Rather, the rightful cause [for blame] shall be against those who wrong people and who commit injustice in the land without any right. These shall have a most painful torment in the Hereafter (Sûrat Al-Shûrâ, 42:41-42).
The pure essence of this concept of self-defense is the removal of injustice and the establishment of justice, which it establishes by giving every wronged party a due right to vindicate oneself and justice, without retribution. Commenting on this âyah, Imâm Tabarî states:
There is no cause for blame or punishment against those who defend themselves against wrongdoing, for they do what they do by [divine] right.
Such defense is, therefore, in the very
nature of the case, neither an act of excess nor wrongdoing. Blame and punishment, rather, attach only to those who wrong people and commit injustice without any right.
Imâm QurTubî said:
This âyah is a proof that a wronged person has the right to personally undertake the task of restoring his usurped right. Now, these wrongdoings [against which one has divine authorization to defend oneself and to vindicate justice] come in three forms:
The First Form of Authority
for Self-Defense: Bodily Injury:
There is no blame on one who suffers wrongful corporal harm at the hands of another if he avenges himself against the one who has wronged him, provided he does this in a manner proportional to the injury inflicted on him.
The Second Form of Authority for
Self-Defense: Transgressing One’s Right: A crime against one’s person, right, or property, for which there is a prescribed divine punishment ( Hadd) (e.g., adultery, fornication, theft, etc.),
entitles one to redress. However, the community [not the individual] is responsible for administering the punishment for any of such crime.
The Third Form of Authority for Self-Defense: Financial Grievance:
The aggrieved party has the right to fight for his usurped financial right until he extricates his right from its usurper.
Hence, one of the primary forms of ·ulm, or wrongdoing—which Muslims are duty-bound to remove—are social injustices inflicted on the poor. Alî ibn Abî Tâlib, a Companion renowned for his discerning juridical acumen, and the Fourth of the Rightly Guided Caliphs, said, in this regard:
Allah has indeed imposed upon the wealthy the [divine] duty to dedicate part of their wealth to fulfilling the basic needs of the poor in their communities.
Hence, whenever the poor of a community can find nothing to protect themselves from the ravages of hunger and homelessness, then such is sufficient proof of [wrongful] neglect of the commands of Allah on the part of the wealthy, for which Allah will call them to account and duly punish them on the Day of Judgment.
Hzt Alî also said: “Never have I seen [the aggregation] of vast wealth, save that I have observed a usurped right [of others] along with it.” 2. Championing the Values of Equality and Justice
(Al-Difâ an Qiyam al-Musâwah wa’l-dâlah) There are many Texts of Revelation that exhort Muslims to equality (musâwah) and that praise equality.
Abû Hurayrah narrated: “The Messenger of Allah (swt)was once asked: ‘ Who is the most honorable person,
O Messenger of Allah?’ He replied: ‘The one who fears Allah most’” (Muslim). [This is against a social backdrop in
Arabia, wherein honor was attached to lineage, tribe, association, and wealth.
Here, taqwa, pious fear of God, becomes the great equalizer among people, for no other attribute elevates one man over any other.] Even so says Allah in the Quran:
O humankind! Indeed, We have created all of you from a single male and female. Moreover, We have made you peoples and tribes, so that you may come to know one another. And, indeed, the noblest of you, in the sight of Allah, is the most God-fearing of you. Indeed, Allah is all-knowing, all-aware (Sûrat Al-Hujurât, 49:13).
In another ḥadîth, the Prophet ﷺ said:
All humankind is from Adam and Eve. Thus, the Arab has no superiority over the non-Arab. Nor does the non-Arab have any superiority over the Arab. Nor does the white have any superiority over the black. Nor does the black have any superiority over the white. [Elevation is a result of] nothing but piety and good action (Bay haqî).
In the social perspective of Islam, equality means that relationships among Muslims are to be governed by a set of abstracted and universal rules, namely, the Sharîah rules, which transcend all other considerations, be they racial, social, geographical, cultural, or of any other aspect. This, of course, does not mean that Islam denies the existence of differences in talents and personal capabilities among human beings, for Allah has said:
This verse (Sûrat Al-Zukhruf, 43:32). shows that Allah’s decree of varying gradients of provision among human beings is a social mechanism for the purposes of wealth distribution. Note that Islam directly links the virtue of equality to the virtue of justice, to which many nusûs, or Texts of Revelation, refer, as in the statement of Allah: Moreover, whenever you judge between people, you shall judge with justice (Sûrat Al-Nisâ’, 4:58). And in the same sûrah:O you who believe! Be most upright in upholding justice, bearing true witness for the sake of Allah alone—even if it is against your own selves, or your parents, or your nearest relatives—regardless of whether one party is rich and the other is poor, for Allah is most regardful of what is good for them both. So do not follow whim such that you pervert equity. For if you distort testimony or turn away from the truth, then, indeed, ever is Allah all-aware of all that you do. (Sûrat Al-Nisâ’, 4:135)
Thus, justice is essentially a procedural arrangement to determine who is in the right between disputing parties. However, procedures of justice are meant to be carried out in accordance with the rules that govern relationships and transactions among people prior to the rise of dispute, and in order to obviate injustice.
Emphasizing the Leadership of the Poor (Imâmat Al-Mustad”afîn) Islam’s foundational concept of vindicating the support and sustenance of the poor, who are invariably downtrodden wherever (yes, wherever!) the rule of Islam is not applied, is implicit in the âyah: Yet We intended to confer favor on those oppressed in the land and to make them exemplary leaders in faith; and to make them inheritors of Our commandments..
Rejecting the Leadership of the Affluent Elite (Raftd Imâmat Al-Mutrafûn)
Contrary to the leadership of the Mustad”afîn (based on economic and political deputation, or istikhlâf), stands the leadership of the mutrafûn (the affluent elite, or power elite), a leadership premised on insolent arrogance and economic and political oppression).
Allah says:
Thus when We intend to destroy a town for evildoing, We first command its affluent elite to become righteous. Yet should they continue to commit flagrant deeds of ungodliness therein, then the divine word of doom comes to pass against it. Then do We demolish it utterly (Surat Al-Isrâ’, 17:16).
The term ‘al-mutrafûn’ mentioned in the âyah does not denote solely the moneyed, or wealthy. Rather, it refers to those who possess vast wealth, who are keen on maintaining a leadership and social status quo of control that is based on the arrogance/oppression binary opposition.
On the authority of Abû Dharr: My intimate friend (that is, the Prophet (SAW)) advised me to not look up to those who are above me, and to look instead to those who are beneath me. He also encouraged me to love the poor and to mix with them (>abarânî, and Ibn hibbân).
The Prophet (saw)wished to live and die a poor man: O Allah! Make me live a poor man and die a poor man and include me in the company of the poor on the Day of Judgment. When the Companions l asked why he made such a supplication, he answered: The poor enter the Garden forty years ahead of the rich.
It is common knowledge that the Prophet (saw)lived a poor life.
Hzt. Âishah said: Ever since they arrived in Madinah, the Prophet (saw) and his household never ate their fill of wheat bread for three successive days. Sometimes two months would pass without a fire being lit (for cooking) in the Household of Allah’s
Messenger…
Source: aljumuah.com/ the-rights-of-the-poor-in-islam
