By Khurram Murad
The Muslim, July, 1978
SMILING IS CHARITY
Prophet Muhammad, may the peace and
blessings of God be upon him, is reported to have said:
"There is no person who does not have the
obligation of (doing) charity every day that the sun rises."
Whereupon he was asked: "0 messenger of God, wherefrom would we
get something to give in charity (so often)?" To which he replied:
"Indeed the gates to goodness are many:
glorifying God, praising Him, magnifying Him,
saying 'There is no god but Allah', enjoining
the good and forbidding the wrong, removing
(any source of harm from the road, listening
to the aggrieved, guiding the blind, showing
the seeker his need, striving as far as your
two legs could carry you and with deep con-
cern to give succour to him who asks, carrying
with the strength of your arms (the burdens of)
the weak. All these are (acts of) charity
which are an obligation on you."
And he added: "And your smiling in the face of your brother
is charity, your removing of stones and thorns
from people's paths is charity, and your guid-
ing a man gone astray in the world is charity for you."
Any person who comes across this beautiful
saying must pause for some moments to con-
sider some of its meanings and implications.
The saying (Arabic: hadith) has two main
concerns: (1 ) awakening the springs of goodness in the human heart and (2)
strengthening the society with the bond of love, affection and brotherhood.
Charity, as it is traditionally understood, con-
sists of money or various objects given by the
rich to help the poor or by the strong to help
the weak. Charity, according to this under-
standing, is extremely narrow and its effects
on the life of society is limited. The saying of
the Prophet, however, takes charity out of this
narrow, physical meaning and on to a spiritual
plane that opens up a vast and limitless world by emphasizing that
Every good is charity. And on every person is the obligation of charity.
This is a unique concept of charity. What is
charity? Isn't it "giving"? Indeed, so it is.
Then let every act of giving be charity-even a
smile in the face of your brother. Charity has
a physical and a spiritual dimension which are
thus fused into one so that a person can say in giving charity:
Take this penny, or take this helping hand or take this feeling!
It is all one practical method proceeding from
the depths of the soul but we do not always
realise the essence of it. The noble Prophet
makes us realise the single spiritual essence
which lies behind every act of goodness. But
the Prophet, peace be upon him, does not
want us merely to know. Knowledge is not an
end in itself. He wants to make us return to
goodness, goodness which is the very word
of God, and the word of God is supreme.
He wants that each of us should move and
stir ourselves from within into goodness so
that giving would become a habit of life, and
that this habit would pass from person to per-
son and prove infectious throughout society.
The wisdom of the prophet lies in expanding
the scope of goodness so that it becomes
within the scope of each individual. If charity
or goodness were to remain restricted to tan-
gible things or to money, many persons would
be prevented from doing humanitarian deeds
and much wealth would remain locked up
within individuals with no one benefiting and
no one discovering its rich and abundant meaning.
The noble Prophet himself acted in a kind and
concerned manner in all his human relation-
ships just as a kind and concerned father
would behave towards his son. He showed
the way to people-step by step-and identi-
fied himself with their problems tirelessly and
whatever the obstacles were. He showed in
so doing the best way to train people and to
win their hearts. That is why he made actions
which seem to be quite a significant part of
charity. That is why he was able to say "Smiling in the face of your
brother is charity and pouring out from your bucket into your
brother's bucket is charity." There are some people who do not ever smile
and they do not ever open up their facial
features when they meet others. There are
people who are even stingy with a drop of
water, a drop of God-given water! They may
be malicious or within them there is a disease
which has blocked the springs of goodness in
their souls. The problem is not merely a smile,
or a drop of water. It concerns the act of giv-
ing. Giving is movement from within which
opens up the locked doors of the self, stirring
the spiritual hand and making it open freely
and widely. Giving is a positive movement and
the soul that is conditioned by positive im-
pulses is a living, stirring, active soul which
stands in marked contrast to the negative, cramped and feeble soul.
Charity in its tangible, narrow sense divides
people into the receivers on the one hand and
the givers on the other. This division inspires
among the receivers feelings of weakness
and even of error, and among those who give
feelings of pride and conceit. Such a division,
for society, is extremely evil. But the comprehensive Islamic concept of
charity which includes all good actions how-
ever small they may be, allows every person
whether rich or poor, to become givers and
receivers on an equal basis. This points to
another basic principle of Islamic thought and
behaviour-that the standard on which life is
judged is not the materialistic or the econ-
omic standard alone but one based on faith,
feeling and sensitivity which form the core of human relations.
Mankind has always been absorbed with and
infatuated by amassing wealth and posses-
sions, and often considers such materialism
to be the very mainstay of life. But a society
based on economic and materialistic con-
siderations alone is often dry and hard and
callous and is eaten up by hatred and envy.
Of course, Islam does not neglect the material
world and the needs of life. Indeed it gives it
due attention. But it does not merely stop
there, because life in actuality does not stop
there. Instead it carries it on to wider and
varied horizons, to greater and higher levels.
For Islam is the religion of life complete. And
from it comes the ties of faith, affection and
love to bind hearts and the society together. God says in the Qur'an:
"And (as for the believers) God has brought
their hearts together. And if you had spent all
that is in the earth you could not have brought their hearts together." (8:63).
The Prophet, peace be upon him, has said:
"No one of you believes untill he loves for his
brother what he loves for himself."
This is the essense of charity. So begin by
meeting your brother with a smile. This would
open up locked souls, penetrate to the depths
of the heart and exert a magnetic bond on
society. Read the hadith again and see how
it reaches into the depths of the soul, the
essence of existence and creates hearts that
are tender, pure, radiant and beautiful.
Adapted from Muhammad Outb's Qubusat
minar-r-rasul by Abdul Wahid Hamid