Many times on this group, the Admins have criticized an Ismaili practice whereby the murid seeks the Imams blessings for forgiveness and purification by offering a sum of money. I simply wanted to bring to your attention that a similar practice in which Believers made payments to the Prophet for forgiveness and blessings existed in the earliest period of Islam. This practice is actually the original meaning of zakat which was later interpreted to be charity. “Later Muslim tradition refers to such charity under the terms zakat or sadaqa, usually rendered “almsgiving”; these two terms are closely associated with prayer in numerous Qur’anic passages, and later Muslim tradition considers them, like prayer, to be one of the “pillars of the faith” that define a Believer. Recent research suggests, however, that the ORIGINAL Qur’anic meaning of zakat and sadaqa was NOT almsgiving, but rather a FINE or PAYMENT MADE BY SOMEONE who was GUILTY of some kind of SIN , in exchange for which Muhammad would pray in order that they might be PURIFIED OF THEIR SIN and that their other affairs might prosper. Indeed, even in the verse just cited (2:177), one notes that payment of zakat is mentioned after prayer, suggesting that it was something different than the giving of wealth to the poor (what we usually mean by almsgiving), which is treated in the verse before mention of prayer. This understanding of ZAKAT or SADAQA as a PAYMENT for ATONEMENT or PURIFICATION of SINS is CLEAREST in the following verses: “Others have confessed their sins … Take from their property sadaqa to cleanse them, and purify [tuzakki] them thereby, and pray for them, indeed your prayer is a consolation to them. God is all-hearing, all-knowing” (Q. 9:102-103); the verb “to purify” is from the same Arabic root as zakat. The fact that Believers were sometimes required to make such PURIFICATION PAYMENTS, however, underscores how the community was, in principle, focused on maintaining its inner purity, on being as much as possible a community that lived strictly in righteousness, so as to set themselves apart from the sinful world around them and thus to attain salvation in the afterlife.” – Fred Donner, (Muhammad and the Believers, 64)
Posted on: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 13:50:21 +0000
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