As the final lap of penance during the Ramzan month is on, the importance of ‘Sakkath’ becomes the beacon light of the holy season and purification. A believer, irrespective of his social standing, can never forgo sakkath, feels Chalai Muhammed Siddique, vice-president, KVVES, Chalai Kothuwal Bazaar.
The economic conditions at human level differentiate man from others. Earning money, preserving it and distribution are the three basic ideals of an economic set-up. In financial appropriation, the main item as per Islamic view is sakkath. Development and purification are the extrinsic meanings of the Arabic term ‘sakkath.’
Sakkath is compulsory in the case of gold, silver, animals, apart from food stuff and fruits. Two-and-a-half per cent of the wealth which is at the complete disposal and ownership of a person for one year should be paid as sakkath. When coins of gold and silver were withdrawn and paper currency took over, pundits had made sakkath applicable to that also. The distribution system of practical sakkath, which is legitimate and logical, is aimed at the eradication of poverty.
The regularisation of sakkath is done in such a way that the person who gets sakkath is always duty-bound to see that the successors of sakkath recipients pay the same after some years. Sakkath is regularised in such a way that it sees to ensure a permanent income to lead an average way of living and confer it on the poor.
The work tools should be given to a person who works as a coolie and capital should be given to a person who is capable of doing business. To a person who is not fit for both in the above mentioned ways, he should be given an opportunity to have a permanent income. The Prophet condemns earning through begging.
Nobody has become poor owing to the act of offering gifts. The aim of sakkath is to see that wealth is not concentrated in one hand and also that it reaches all deserving and needy.
In the point of view of Islam, sakkath is nothing but the policy of submitting to the Creator, instead of keeping wealth and enjoying what is legitimately due to the Creator. The Prophet had ordered that it must go to the hands of a definite group, undergoing suffering and penury and living in isolation from the mainstream, Muhammed Siddique pointed out.
With only two more days to go for the end of the Holy Ramzan season, Siddique is one among those leading the sakkath initiative in his area of the city.
