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Page 3 of 4 $100 Devote a hundred dollars each month to substituting one of your existing purchases with a Muslim product, or at least purchasing from a Muslim business. In the age of capitalism, the strength and sovereignty of a community is largely determined by the resilience of its business sector. Across the value chain of business, Muslim companies are still among the youngest and most undercapitalized of all, and more than ever require the financial support of their communities. Sometimes buying Muslim products means spending a little more. This is necessarily the case before Muslim companies can achieve the scale of, for instance, international chains, many of which keep prices low by exerting exploitative levels of control on overseas markets. Choosing to “buy Muslim” is far from being exclusivist and not much different than choosing to “buy American” or “buy British.” If a $ billion Islamic banking industry is something to go by, Muslims do happen to consider their economic “identity” a distinct one. It naturally follows that Muslim companies should develop some level of economic self-sufficiency. Self-sufficiency that ends up as a robust global capital market begins at first with our pocketbook. $1,000 This year diversify your zakat allocation to include debt relief for students. How often we find the budding scholar, the next big entrepreneur, or the talented writer, groaning under the burden of thousands of dollars of student loans, relinquishing his less pedestrian ambitions for something more sensible. Provided one meets the conditions for a valid zakat payment (see www.sunnipath.com for detailed and reliable answers to commonly asked questions), three additional points make the possibility of relieving debt burdens a practical reality: ) one may pay zakat in advance, allowing for larger one-time payments to students; ) the portion of the zakat payment made in advance may be paid in installments, giving the student the security of a future stream of cash without excessively burdening the one paying; ) provided one makes the intention first, one may pay the zakat in the guise of a gift, avoiding the possible stigma attached to giving zakat to one’s deserving relatives. |