Every year during Ramzan, businessman Ahsan Malik and his family scout the neighbourhood for people who are in need of money but too self-respecting to ask for handouts.
And once they identify an eligible individual or family, the Malik clan gives them zakat, the annual cash donation that every practicing Muslim must make towards charity.
Last year, the Maliks’ contribution helped a young man through engineering college, while this year, the beneficiary is a destitute woman whose daughter is getting married. Over the years, the Maliks have donated lakhs of rupees as zakat, which has to be at least 2.5% of an individual’s wealth.
Zakat is obligatory for all adult Muslims possessing 75 grams of gold or its equivalent. Since some of the richest Muslims in the country live in Mumbai, the city’s annual zakat distribution runs into crores. Most of the donations are made during Ramzan, a month of fasting and piety.
“Of the Rs15,000 crore expected to be distributed as zakat throughout the country this year, Rs1,000 crore to Rs1,500 crore will come from Mumbai,” estimated Rahmatullah Abdul Ahad, founder of the All India Council of Muslim Economic Upliftment. Rahmatullah says his organisation arrived at the figure using random sampling and government data. He admits the sample size is small and it should not be generalised. “But it still gives a glimpse of what the result could be.”
While the figures are heartening, the fact remains that Muslims are among the economically weakest sections of society. Social reformers feel that zakat needs to evolve as a social security system instead of remaining just a religious obligation.
“Zakat collection and distribution is all about empowering economically backward Muslims by generating employment and ensuring a steady source of income,” says Shuaib Sayyed, manager of research and comparative religion, Islamic Research Foundation.
Meanwhile, some Muslim organisations and social workers in the city have been propagating the idea of centralising zakat collection and disbursement. “Most individual donors have no vision or direction and hence their contributions do not make much impact on the lives of the beneficiaries. Zakat must empower needy families so that they become givers instead of receivers,” says social worker Shadab Kazmi, who, along with a few like-minded friends, identifies the needy and the donors in his area and brings them together.
Rahmatullah proposes that zakat must be collected and distributed at a single place so that it can “create wealth along with the generation of income for current use”.
However, there are those who feel that centralisation of zakat, though a great idea, is hard to pull off.
“There will always be vested interests and badly managed funds. Besides, there is great joy in personally seeking out and helping people in need,” says school teacher Zeenat Khan, who gave her zakat this year to a distant cousin who needed the money for a major surgery. Khan also convinced her colleagues to give part of their zakat to her relative.
