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Iraqi
Zakah to Help, Employ the Poor
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Thousands
of Iraqis have lost their jobs under the US occupation
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By
Samir Haddad, IOL Correspondent
BAGHDAD,
October 28 (IslamOnline.net) – Iraqi mosques and charity
organizations tend to channel the Zakah money into productive
projects to help provide for the poor, generate job opportunities for
the unemployed Iraqis, in line with Fatwas making the practice legal.
In
light of the deteriorating conditions that affected all walks of
Iraqis’ lives since the US-led invasion in March, 2003, ways had to
be find to face the chaotic situation in a country rich with its
natural resources, but unlucky enough to use them for the welfare of
its people.
“The
mosque has used part of Zakah money last summer to rent a piece
of land in Al-Yusefiya area (near the capital Baghdad), and employed a
number of jobless, poor and needy Iraqis – entitled to Zakah money
-- to tend to the land,” Sheikh Monzer Hashim Al-Basil, a mosque
imam in south Baghdad told IslamOnline.net.
“The
land revenues will be distributed among the poor workers and their
families,” he added.
Sheikh
Omar Heigel, a mosque imam in Al-Dura area, agreed.
“We
are keen on directing Zakah money to establish productive
projects such as groceries, to be run by those deserving Zakah.
“However,
some rich people commit us to spending their Zakah money on slaying
animals as sacrifices and distributing meat among the poor.”
Reports
said that the US occupation of Iraq has left some 10
million Iraqis
in both the private and public sectors jobless.
The
fired chief army officers turned into sellers
and drivers to make ends meet after the
dissolution, which law experts along with human rights activists
called unfair
and illegal.
Fatwas
The
concept of investing Zakah money in productive projects to help
employ the jobless and help the poor in a practical way is based on
fatwas issued by prominent Muslim scholars.
“Prominent
Muslim scholar Yusuf Al-Qaradawi has urged in one of his books to
direct the Zakah money to establish productive projects,”
professor of the Islamic Sciences Faculty in the Baghdad University,
Abdul Moneim Al-Heiti, told IOL.
“We
respect such fatwa as it helps create new jobs and enhance
self-dependence among the poor.”
Sheikh
Ibrahim Al-Modarris, member of the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS),
agrees.
“Part
of Zakah could be given to the poor to establish productive projects
with the aim of generating job opportunities and reducing the rate of
unemployment among Iraqis fired from their jobs by the occupation
forces.”
The
AMS member, however, added it is forbidden for Zakah payers
themselves to invest their Zakah money in productive projects.
“It
would be a sort of taking money of the poor if the Zakah money
is lost.”
But
he urged Zakah payers to offer assistance in developing such
productive projects in return for financial sums.
Khaled
Al-Meshhedani, chairman of an Iraqi charity to facilitate marriage
urged Muslims to pay Zakah money to charities of the sort.
“The
charity has got a fatwa permitting Muslims to pay Zakah to our
charity facilitating marriage to be directed to the poor,” he told
IOL.
He
added Zakah could be used by the charity to help poor Iraqis to
get married.
By
the end of Ramadan, Muslims are to pay their Zakah for the poor
and needy. Zakah is the third pillar of Islam. It is obligatory
on those who are able to pay it.
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