5 Pillars Made Plain
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Pillar 3: Intro to Zakat (Almsgiving)
It isn’t easy to part with the things we love and that's the point. Zakat (Almsgiving) trains our hearts to value giving more than material things. Sh. Abdullah Oduro dives into the third most important pillar of Islam, one that links us to God and to other people.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon you all. Abdullah Oduro and welcome. There was a young man named Enrique that eventually became Musa. He embraced Islam and he was in the mosque one day and after the fifth prayer, the A'ishah prayer, a man stood up from a different country where he started to talk about the issues that his civilians in his country was facing. And he was pleading with the congregation to see if they could help them financially to serve and help their brothers in the other country. Musa was, subhanAllah, he was so surprised and he felt so bad for them. To where when the man passed around the pledges, Musa went in his pocket and he took money and he gave it to that establishment and that organization to help them. After that night was over, the next day, we spoke with Musa and we said, well, mashAllah, we saw that you gave some money. This is your first week of being a Muslim. And then Musa disclosed to us that he spent his last $500. Mind you, Musa was married or he had a close companion, female, that was a non-Muslim. And he was living with her and they just moved into an apartment. Now, one could say, okay, what Musa should have done was taken a portion of that money and spent it to help a noble cause. But what's most important here is that Musa did something. As a new Muslim, as a convert, he spent his money to help a noble cause. He spent his money to help those that were poor and destitute and that were in need. When we look in Islam, there is a pillar called zakat. And zakat is most important after the salah.
The zakat in the Quran is accompanied with the word salah or the establishment of the prayer, the order of salah, more than 10 times. When you see the word established, a prayer you will see, and pay the zakat, accompanied with it more than 10 times in the Quran. This is why scholars in Islam say that the zakat is the next important pillar after the prayer, being the third most important pillar of the five. Now, zakat, as we're going to learn, is something that is paid from your money or your belongings. In other words, those things that you value. Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la mentions in the Quran in chapter number three, where he says, after I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed Satan, You will not reach the level of piety or righteousness until you spend out of that which you love. Now, this is important, that Allah says that you will not reach piety, you will not reach the level of righteousness, to where you are obedient to God, to the best of your ability, and your actions are in light of that obedience. You will not reach that until you spend out of that which you love. And this is an important point, how Allah uses this term, out of that which you love. He doesn't say spend your money. He says, spend out of that which you love. Giving what you value to something much greater. What you value and what you own and what you have in your possession and your authority, you give it to someone else to possess and own. That takes a level of piety. You love the fact of giving and helping others more than you love the fact of you owning that thing or loving that thing that you own in it of itself. That is righteousness, which one could term as sacrifice. When we look at zakat also, the system that has been set by Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala,
we have to remember that it is a pillar of Islam. This is what we're talking about. The five W's, the who, what, when, where, and why of these pillars of Islam. And we mentioned that zakat is such an important pillar coming right after the prayer, that when we learn the way that it's instructed and how Allah has legislated it for certain types of people at certain times, you see the wisdom of Allah appropriating the knowledge that he has in this fashion. And you learn to appreciate it. From it is a communal benefit to where you give to those that are in need or those that need some assistance if you have something that is surplus. So we ask Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala to make you of those that understand this zakat, which is a misunderstood pillar of Islam, and sorry to say, a highly neglected pillar. But you as a convert, inshallah, will have the root understanding in this beautiful pillar of Islam. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Thank you.
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