Education and Charity

Charity, which stands for good doing, is the best trait and the best fruit of existence. It results in people’s docility and collective honoring. It also causes the illustrious mentioning after death. Islam has positively adopted and called to charity. God says:

Surely, Allah enjoins the doing of justice and the doing of good to others and the giving to the kindred, and He forbids indecency, and evil and rebellion.
He defines it as the best quality:

And whoever submits himself wholly to Allah and he is the doer of good to others, he indeed has taken hold of the firmest thing upon which one can lay hold.

He also urges on doing charity, and promised of rewarding what is better:

Whoever brings good, he shall have better than it, and they shall be secure from terror on that day.
He promises of rewarding the good doing tenfold:

Whoever brings a good deed, he shall have ten like it.

God also promises of keeping the reward of the charitable and rewarding them with the best:

And be patient, for surely Allah does not waste the reward of the good doers.

Charity is a principal pillar of constructing the human societies and the best means of dispersing reciprocal love and association. God defines some parties and orders of treating them benevolently because of the ties of relation, neighborhood or being without custody. God says:

And serve Allah and do not associate any thing with Him. And be good to the parents and to the near of kin and to orphans and the needy and the neighbor of your kin and the alien neighbor, and the companion in a journey and the wayfarer and those whom your right hands possess. Surely, Allah does not love him who is proud, boastful.

God compares worship with treating such parties kindly, since they are in exigent need of kindness and charity. These parties are:

- The parents: Custody and kind treatment to the parents are the tightest matters of family attachment. We have previously referred to this point.

- The near of kin: They are the brothers, paternal and maternal uncles, and their sons in addition to the other kinsmen and kinswomen. Using charity to these individuals disperses love among the family members. Family is surely the first brick in the social structure.

- The orphans: They are those who lost their parents. The nation entirely is responsible for caring and educating the orphans as a form of the social solidarity that Islam has imposed. It has also decreed of meeting the needs of the handicapped, the weak, and the orphans.

- The poor: They are the paupers who are unable to meet their annuity. Hence, Islam has ordered the nation of saving the needs of the poor. Islam has also given them exclusively a good deal of social obligations and a portion in the poor rate, so that they will get rid of poverty, which should be eradicated totally from the Islamic society.

- The neighbors, whether the near of kin or the alien: God orders of treating the neighbors kindly in order to achieve firm bonds of love and association among people of the same quarter. This is surely one of the reasons of the social connection and attachment.

- The wayfarers: They are those who lose all their fortune before they arrive in their hometowns.

Islam has ordered of attending to them carefully and meeting their needs until they reach their homes. In addition, a portion of the poor rate is allotted to them.

- The slaves: Islam has urged on doing good to the slaves by manumitting them and treating them kindly and avoiding intruding them to heavy duties.

Charity and benevolence to those parties creates amiability and empowers the reciprocal social bonds to make people represent one hand against their enemies.

Adapted from the book: "The Educational System in Islam" by: "Baqir Sharif Al-Qireshi"