Difference Between Zakat and Tax

Zakat and Tax are two completely different concepts.
Tax is collected from every person of a country or area by the government of the country or area.
If the person is rich he needs to pay tax and if he is poor even then he need to pay the tax on the items or things on which Tax is applied by the government.
Tax is forced by the government.
Tax is used for development of the country or particular area from where the Tax was collected.

But Zakat is a different concept.
Zakat is applied on the people who can pay it.
There are some Nisab (rules) applied on the payer of Zakat.
If some body satisfies those Nisab (rules), he is eligible to pay the Zakat.
If somebody has 85 Grams Gold or 595 Grams Silver or if he has some currency equal to the above written quantity of Gold, he has to pay the Zakat on it.
Zakat is payable after one Lunar (moon) year if the above written quantity of gold, silver or money is kept by any person.
The Ratio of Zakat is 2.5% (Approx. 1/40). Zakat is used to help the poor people of the country or the area.
Zakat cannot be spent on the people who are not eligible for the Zakat.

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National Geographic - Inside Mecca

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Abdullah Ibn Sailam (R.A Sahaba) -01

Al-Husayn ibn Sailam was a Jewish rabbi in Yathrib who was widely respected and honoured by the people of the city even by those who were not Jewish. He was known for his piety and goodness, his upright conduct and his truthfulness.

 

Al-Husayn lived a peaceful and gentle life but he was serious, purposeful and organized in the way he spent his time. For a fixed period each day, he would worship, teach and preach in the temple. Then he would spend some time in his orchard, looking after date palms, pruning and pollinating. Thereafter, to increase his understanding and knowledge of his religion, he would devote himself to the study of the Torah.

In this study, it is said. he was particularly struck by some verses of the Torah which dealt with the coming of a Prophet who would complete the message of previous Prophets. Al-Husayn therefore took an immediate and keen interest when he heard reports of the appearance of a Prophet in Makkah. 

He said:

"When I heard of the appearance of the Messenger of God, peace be on him, I began to make enquiries about his name, his genealogy, his characteristics, his time and place and I began to compare this information with what is contained m our books. From these enquiries, I became convinced about the authenticity of his prophethood and I affirmed the truth of his mission. However, I concealed my conclusions from the Jews. I held my tongue...

Then came the day when the Prophet, peace be on him, left Makkah and headed for Yathrib. When he reached Yathrib and stopped at Quba, a man came rushing into the city, calling out to people and announcing the arrival of the Prophet. At that moment, I was at the top of a palm tree doing some work.

My aunt, Khalidah bint al-Harith, was sitting under the tree. On hearing the news, I shouted:

'Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! (God is Great! God is Great!' When my aunt heard my takbir, she remonstrated with me: 'May God frustrate you...By God, if you had heard that Moses was coming you would not have been more enthusiastic.'

'Auntie, he is really, by God, the 'brother' of Moses and follows his religion. He was sent with the same mission as Moses.' She was silent for a while and then said: 'Is he the Prophet about whom you spoke to us who would be sent to confirm the truth preached by previous (Prophets) and complete the message of his Lord?' 'Yes,' I replied.

Without any delay or hesitation, I went out to meet the Prophet. I saw crowds of people at his door. I moved about in the crowds until I reached close to him. The first words I heard him say were:

'O people! Spread peace...Share food...Pray during the night while people (normally) sleep... and you will enter Paradise in peace...'

I looked at him closely. I scrutinized him and was convinced that his face was not that of an imposter. I went closer to him and made the declaration of faith that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.


The Prophet turned to me and asked: 'What is your name?' 'Al-Husayn ibn Sailam,' I replied.

'Instead, it is (now) Abdullah ibn Sallam,' he said (giving me a new name). 'Yes,' I agreed. 'Abdullah ibn Sailam (it shall be). By Him who has sent you with the Truth, I do not wish to have another name after this day.'

I returned home and introduced Islam to my wife, my children and the rest of my household. They all accepted Islam including my aunt KhaIidah who was then an old lady. However, I advised them then to conceal our acceptance of Islam from the Jews until I gave them permission. They agreed.

Subsequently, I went back to the Prophet, peace be on him, and said: 'O Messenger of God! The Jews are a people (inclined to) slander and falsehood. I want you to invite their most prominent men to meet you. (During the meeting however), you should keep me concealed from them in one of your rooms.

Ask them then about my status among them before they find out of my acceptance of Islam. Then invite them to Islam. If they were to know that I have become a Muslim, they would denounce me and accuse me of everything base and slander me.'

The Prophet kept me in one of his rooms and invited the prominent Jewish personalities to visit him. He introduced Islam to them and urged them to have faith in God...They began to dispute and argue with him about the Truth. When he realized that they were not inclined to accept Islam, he put the question to them:

'What is the status of Al-Husayn ibn Sailam among you?'

'He is our sayyid (leader) and the son of our sayyid. He is our rabbi and our alim (scholar), the son of our rabbi and alim.'

'If you come to know that he has accepted Islam, would you accept Islam also?' asked the Prophet.
'God forbid! He would not accept Islam. May God protect him from accepting Islam,' they said (horrified).

At this point I came out in full view of them and announced: 'O assembly of Jews! Be conscious of God and accept what Muhammad has brought. By God, you certainly know that he is the Messenger of God and you can find prophecies about him and mention of his name and characteristics in your Torah. I for my part declare that he is the Messenger of God. I have faith in him and believe that he is true. I know him.'

'You are a liar,' they shouted. 'By God, you are evil and ignorant, the son of an evil and ignorant person.' And they continued to heap every conceivable abuse on me..."

Abdullah ibn Sailam approached Islam with a soul thirsty for knowledge. He was passionately devoted to the Quran and spent much time reciting and studying its beautiful and sublime verses. He was deeply attached to the noble Prophet and was constantly in his company.
Much of his time he spent in the masjid, engaged in worship, in learning and in teaching. He was known for his sweet, moving and effective way of teaching study circles of Sahabah who assembled regularly in the Prophet's mosque.

Abdullah ibn Sallam was known among the Sahabah as a man from ahl-al-Jannah "- the people of Paradise. This was because of his determination on the advice of the Prophet to hold steadfastly to the "most trustworthy handhold" that is belief in and total submission to God.

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Tabligh Jamaat

The emergence of the Tabligh Jamaat as a movement for the reawakening of faith can be seen as a continuation of the broader trend of Islamic revival in North India in the wake of the collapsed Muslim political power and consolidation of the British rule in India in the mid-nineteenth century. The emergence of Tabligh Jamaat was also a direct response to the rise of such aggressive Hindu proselytizing movements as the Shuddhi and Sangathan, which launched massive efforts in the early twentieth century to reconvert those Hindus who had converted to Islam in the past. Maulana Ilyas, the founder of the Tablighi Jamaat, believed that only a grassroots Islamic religious movement could counter it.

The Tablighi Jamaat originated in Mewat, in North India, inhabited by Rajput tribes known as Meos. There is evidence that there were several Meo conversion to Islam, followed by re-conversion to Hinduism whenever Muslim political power declined in the region. When Ilyas started his religious movement in Mewat, most Meos were Muslim in name only. They worshipped Hindu deities in their homes and celebrated Hindu religious festivals. They could not recite Shahadah or say their daily ritual prayers. Their birth, marriage, and death rituals were all based on Hindu customs.

Maulana Ilyas, a religious scholar of the orthodox Deoband, and a follower of the Naqshabandiyah, learned the situation. His initial effort was to establish a network of mosque-based religious schools to educate Mewati Muslim about correct Islamic beliefs and practices. But he became disillusioned with the reality that these institutions were producing religious functionaries but not preachers. Following this, he quit his teaching position at Madrasah Mazharul Ulum in Saharanpur and moved to Basti Nizamuddin in the old quarters of Delhi to begin his missionary work. Tablighi movement was formally launched in 1926 from this place.

Maulana Ilyas devoted to what he described as “the mission of the prophets”. His message was simple: “Ai Musalmano Musalman bano”. The method adopted by him was equally simple. It was to organize units of at least ten persons and send them to various villages. These units (jamaat), would visit a village, invite the local Muslim to assemble in the mosque and present their message in the form of six demands;

1. Every Muslim must be able to recite Shahadah correctly in Arabic.

2. A muslim must learn how to say the Shalat correctly.

3. To learn the basic teaching of Islam and to do dhikr.

4. To respect the fellow Muslims

5. To inculcate honesty and sincerity of purpose in such endeavors.

6. To spend some times and travel from place to place spreading the words of God.

Maulana Ilyas later added another rule asking members to abstain from wasting time in idle talk and from sinful deeds.

The movement met with spectacular success in a relatively short period. Thousands of Muslims joined Maulana Ilyas to propagate the message of Islam throughout Mewat. There were signs of Islamic religious revival everywhere in the area. Jamaat workers are rigid in following the orthodox and observing the shariah. They stayed away from politics and political controversies. Instead of publishing books, they go door to door and invite people to join their work.

Maulana Ilyas was succeeded by his son, Maulana Yusuf. During this time, this informal association with no written constitution, no standardized organizational rules and procedures, was spread beyond India to countries of Southeast Asia, the middle east, Africa, Europe and north America. The Jamaat has become a truly global Islamic movement. Its influence has grown significantly over the past two decades. Today it has followers all over the Muslim world and the West. Its 1993 annual international conference in Raiwind near Lahore, attended by more than one Million Muslims from 94 countries has become the second largest religious congregation of the Muslim world after the Hajj.

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The First Engineer…Yahya Ayyash

The birth of Light 

In times of complete darkness, selfishness, and deafness there is always a spark of hope, there is always a light coming from no-where, there are very few people who would sacrifice whatever they possess for the sake of others, for the sake of Allah and His religion. Ayyash was one of those committed men, who gave his entire life to Palestine in order for her to regain the freedom and dignity that were stolen the at the beginning of the 20th century by the Zionist infidels. 

The story began there—In Rafa the birthplace of Resistance and Revolution. Yahya Ayyash was born to an ordinary family on March 3rd, 1966. On that day trees, rocks in the streets, birds, and everything seemed happy to the arrival of the Hero. However, the strangest thing in Ayyash was his name. “Yahyya” which means “to live” and “Ayyash” which also means “a person who lives a long life”. And truly he did live in the hearts of noble people for a long time and he will do so, he lived and will remain alive in the hearts and minds of all people.

The genius student

 
Ayyash completed his secondary school education in Rafat with excellent grades that qualified him to study engineering at Beir Zeit University. Ayyash received a Bachelor's degree of “Electrical Engineering” in 1988. Ayyash wanted to travel abroad to pursuit his higher education, but the Zionists prevented him from going out. He became active in the ranks of Ezz Eddeen Al Qassam Brigades in the beginning of 1992, where he specialized in making explosives from raw materials available in the Palestinian territories. He is credited with introducing the technique of Martyrdom Operations in the Palestinian War against Israeli-Zionist terrorism.

An ordinary man

 
Those who had the honor to meet and to talk with Ayyash said he was an ordinary man who loved his family, his neighbors, and his homeland. Everyone who knew Ayyash loved him because Ayyash was so modest and helpful to whoever wanted help. A look at Yahya’s eyes tell you that he was humble and modest. They , in fact, hide, beneath them a deep man with a profound thinking.

The Engineer … the father of Martyrdom Operations

 
It was due to Yahya Ayyash that the heroics martyrdom attacks were used against the Israeli aggression on armless civilian Palestinians. When the Zionist murderer Baruch Goldstein killed more than thirty Palestinians while they were praying in Al-Ibrahimy Mosque in Khalil town, Hamas vowed that the Jews will pay the price of that massacre. A few weeks after the brutal massacre against armless Palestinian worshippers, a number of heroic attack took place against the usurpers. And soon after that the Zionist government traced those attack back to Ayyash who became the number one wanted man for the Israeli gangs. Ayyash was chased for about three years in which he moved to many places before he made to Gaza where he later was assassinated.
In that capacity, he earned the nickname “the Engineer”, (Al-Muhandes in Arabic). It is important to mention that it is not the Palestinian or Hamas who called him “The Engineer”, but it was the enemy. 

Ayyash who knew very much that he was being chased wherever he went did his best to train as many engineers as he could. And he did manage to train tens of Palestinians and he taught them how to make everything out of very simple materials.

The Martyr

 
On Friday February the fifth, pigeons were hovering over Beit Lahya, the waves of the sea were very high and very angry, the wind was silent, people we rushing here and there, they all knew that something terrible might happen. When suddenly people were shouting “Ayyash was killed! Ayyash was Assassinated!” everybody was stuck, people were crying in the streets, in the cars, in their balconies, in their rooms. Little kids left schools to find a place to cry for the Hero passed away. Ayyash was killed. Everything was sad and angry, the trees looked furious, the birds seemed angry, the wind stopped blowing, there were no more waves in the sea. Only the infields, the Zionists, were happy celebrating the death of Yahya Ayyash. The assassination of Yahya Ayyash was with a booby-trapped cellular phone. The Zionists thought there would be no more martyrdom operation , they thought that there would be no more resistance. They were foolish. For it was a fake short-lived victory for them.

A victim of the Zionist violations

 
Yahya was not searching to kill as huge human as the terrorist Sharon did in Sabra and Shatila. He had the ability to put 100 Kg of TNT in a cinema or any place which is very crowded. Also, he had the ability to put a tractor of TNT under a tower to be completely damaged. However, he did not do that because of his Islamic moral that we did not kill a child or woman in war. Whatever the enemy did, we can do as he did. Means if the enemy killed children, we would kill children. Also, if they devastated houses, we should launch a homemade rocket to devastate a house. Yahya, the first engineer was the first victim but the Zionist occupation paid the bell. 

Exactly fifty days elapsed when a series of martyrdom operations shook the entity of the occupation. They began with dual attack that left more than twenty Zionist solders dead. Hamas Military wing – Ezzedeen Al-Qassam Brigades (Students of the Engineer)  took responsibility of the attacks. They said that was a mere beginning of their retaliation to the assassination of their brave hero Ayyash. A Jewish journalist commented saying “Hamas extracted a heavy price from the Jewish state for killing the man known as "The Engineer." Four revenge attacks in seven days killed dozens and changed the course of Israel's political history.”

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