Ramadan lets you tap into the mother lode of ajr (reward) – for every good deed you do, you get many times the usual reward. So as Muslims, for whom giving charity is not only an encouraged act but also a full-fledged religious obligation, Ramadan promises a happy occasion where we can make a ‘profit’ from our charity in terms of ajr or reward. This is why traditionally we give more charity during Ramadan, with many of us distributing even our zakah this month.
But charity is supposed to be more about the recipient than the giver. While unplanned donations undoubtedly fulfill religious obligations, and make us feel good to boot, in countries like Bangladesh where there is abundant opportunity to make a real dent in poverty with zakah (one count put zakah collection in Bangladesh at BDT 110 billion, or 1.4% of the GDP, six years ago), it is an inefficient use of our money. Muslims try to do everything with ihsan (excellence) and I feel our charity should be no exception.
I have been a development practitioner and researcher for nearly a decade. There are many insights you pick up along the way, and at Fajr’s invitation I am happy to share some of them here. This list is by no means definitive, neither is it purely zakah oriented. Instead my hope is that it will help start a conversation about our charitable practices, encouraging people to read more about development norms, and reach their own conclusions.
1. Plan:
Imam Bukhari introduces his compendium of the sayings of the Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) with the famous “Innamal a’malu bin-niyah” (actions are judged by their intentions). In everyday life, our intentions are accompanied by plans, however hazy. When we make an intention to do wudu for example, we have a plan in our mind of how to carry out that intention – “I fell accidentally into a pond and now I’m wet” is seldom an acceptable substitute for wudu.
And yet, in the case of giving to charity, although we plan how we’ll gather our money, we don’t necessarily plan how we’ll distribute them. We then end up giving to the first good opportunity that catches our eye, creating a mad rush in the last ten days of Ramadan to ‘offload’ zakah! This is an inefficient use of our hard earned money. My husband and I find it a good practice to write down who we plan to give our zakah to, and when, ahead of actually gathering the money. This way we’re better focused on how well our money will be used than simply on “I need to get rid of this stuff asap to halal-ify my wealth”. The sadaqa fund, on the other hand, we keep for these spur-of-the- moment donations because, let’s face it, we can’t plan for every eventuality.
2. Stop giving the majority of your charity in Ramadan: I fear this will be unpopular advice, but the logic behind it is sound. Underprivileged people, who are usually zakah recipients, struggle with a range of problems, not least of which is poor financial literacy. If you don’t have money, you won’t learn how to use money. Think back to when you were younger – how good were you at accessing safe savings schemes, prioritizing expenditures, and planning for the long-term? Chances are you were really bad at it, because you’d just started using money. It’s the same for people who’ve had limited access to money all their lives. On top of that, underprivileged people have competing priorities: how do you choose between sending your child to school, paying for medical expenses, and buying food? A tragic combination of these two factors mean many people end up spending available funds on the most immediate need, without objectively considering the future.
I remember a sincere donor once handing me a good sum of money so I could take care of the logistics of transferring his donation to a very poor rickshaw puller. I advised the donor not to transfer the money in one lump sum, without a proper expenditure plan, but he was insistent. It didn’t surprise me at all when he called back, bewildered that the recipient had spent the entire sum on buying clothes for his daughters instead of on anything of long-term value. This is natural; it was not the rickshaw puller’s fault. One-time large donations are like winning the lottery – really cool, sure, but you can’t plan for it. Shammi Shawkat Quddus, a post-graduate student at Harvard, explains it succinctly, “While it is better than not giving at all, a one-time contribution does little to alleviate poverty compared to consistent and PREDICTABLE charity. If a family knows it will get Tk 2000 extra for the next five years, that family will invest in sending their kid to a better school, or invest in a pump that will take a few years to pay off. But if the same money is given as a one-time donation, the family will not make a long-term investment; rather they will spend on one-time expenses, such as renovating a house.”
“But, Nabila,” I hear you say, “I will be missing out on all those ajr floating around in Ramadan!” I understand your anguish; I’m equally greedy too. So my husband and I practice a Muslim charity hack: we make the niyyah (intention) for it in Ramadan, but distribute our charity consistently during the rest of the year. If you want to lock down on the money further, go ahead and transfer it to a different ‘untouchable’ account in Ramadan. That way you know your money is safely put away, you get the ajr of Ramadan, but your distribution has a much more substantial impact than a once-a-year dump. Transferring regularly also lets you stay in touch with your recipient, offer advice when needed, and—who knows—maybe you’ll be tempted to top up your zakah with some sadaqa later in the year. It really is win-win. 3. Consult the recipient: I am a big advocate of participatory development. As donors, we are in no position to dictate to our recipients how they should spend the money. In fact, one of the pre-conditions of zakah is that the recipient gains full ownership of the money. On the other hand, there are all the problems I discussed above of poor financial literacy. How do we reconcile the two imperatives?
As a rule, people know what they ‘need’. You can best facilitate them in fulfilling their need by talking to them about ‘how’ they want to fulfill it. So they tell you, “I really need my son to finish university, so he can earn.” And you say, “Okay, so how much does he need per month to continue studying?” It will give you an indication of how much money they should get from you (if it falls short, maybe you could add a little from your friends), and the conversation itself will help ‘them’ plan better how to spend the money. Don’t hesitate to go into the nitty-gritties of the plan if you have to – the more transparency, the better the plan.
4. Stop the shari-lungi:
This is like a disease in this country. Much has been written of the futility, danger, and borderline un-Islamicness of this practice, so I won’t delve much into it. Simply, zakah is a tool for poverty alleviation. It boggles the mind that anyone can think distributing substandard clothes will alleviate poverty. I remember a poor woman once complaining of her so-called “zakater shari” that was so thin, it became transparent after one wash. But suppose you give high quality shari, would that be more useful? I can unequivocally say it won’t be. I have interviewed women in slums who have only one shari, so when they wash it, they need to stay inside till it dries. Yes, this is the case in 2016. But even they won’t suddenly stop being poor if you give them one high quality jamdani! Instead pay the fees so she can perhaps train to become a tailor (or any other trade of her choice), introduce her to clients, and buy her equipment so she can set up a business. In fact, you can do any number of things besides ostentatiously wasting your money on shari-lungi.
5. Don’t break up your money into little pieces:
Unless you’re really rich, and your charity amounts to lacs, chances are it will be most useful to one or two recipients, not tens of them. The temptation to help many is strong, I know, and it is so difficult to refuse anybody. But the quality of this type of help is dismal. CommunityAction’s scholarship program, for example, keeps children in school, and at times even funds them through university, with consistent sums of about Tk 2000 every month. So per year, a student needs about Tk 24,000 (this is in urban areas; in rural areas, it is much less). Suppose this figure is your annual zakah, and you divide it into a lot of tiny parts: it will reach a lot of people, sure, but it doesn’t help any of them achieve a substantial milestone like finishing school. Similarly, projects that randomly distribute food—while stemming from incredible kindness— are also not the most effective way to tackle malnutrition.
Childhood stunting is a real problem in Bangladesh, making reduction of malnutrition a must. So try and ensure children in a family, or an institution, or pregnant women, get nutritious food every day, instead of feeding a thousand random people one meal. Adequate nutrition in the thousand days between a mother getting pregnant and the child turning two years old can make a huge difference in the child’s future life trajectory. You’ll feed less people if you follow this suggestion, I understand, but your impact will be truly felt.
One of the best ways to be good at distributing zakah is to know the eight categories of recipients well, including how modern scholars explain these categories. In our country, raising overhead costs for charities is really difficult, for example – people confuse it with corruption. But one of the eight categories in the Qur’an is “employees of zakah”, which has been expanded to include social service workers who identify eligible recipients, collectors of zakah, auditors of the accounts, those who do the secretarial work, those who distribute etc. If this isn’t overhead cost, what is? And yet, we hesitate! Paying off someone’s debts is also an amazing way to use your zakah. You may not see the immediate benefit, but the potential harm you’ve prevented will be enormous.
Like any other forms of sincere worship, charity needs effort. And it is easier to put in that effort, if we’re in constant practice. This constant practice can happen in many ways, without spending a lot of money. After all, ‘even a smile is charity’ so it is possible to refuse a beggar, if you do, with a smile instead of a frown. My brother shared that he always pays a few takas extra to rickshaw pullers because the percentage increase in the rickshaw pullers’ income from that amount is much higher than the percentage loss for my brother. In other words, even a tiny increase makes rickshaw pullers disproportion- ately happy. Inspired by him, I tried this last Ramadan. I was completely taken aback by how HARD it was to con- sistently do it for a month – pointless bargaining with rickshaw pullers is a cruel art form in Bangladesh. But the result of deliberate practice meant by the end of the month, I had at least learnt to identify the hidden Scrooge within me. I consider that a win.
This Ramadan, I invite you to try doing this cheap exercise – depending on how frequently you travel, your extra expense won’t be above a few hundred takas in the entire month. Trust me, it’s a good start, and you’ll get to know the real you!
