Seadet-i Ebediyye - Endless Bliss Fifth Fascicle

zakât to the poor or to a deputy in gold and then to convert it into
paper money, is called Hîla-i shar’iyya. This technique, which is
inevitably applied for the purpose of paying zakât compatibly with
Islam’s prescription, yields much thawâb. The twenty-first and
fortieth chapters of the current fascicle inform us that it is
permissible to do hîla-i shar’iyya, and for the poor person to give
back (as a gift) the money. However, after zakât becomes fard, it
becomes harâm to practise this technique if it is intended to avoid
giving zakât; it is considered a fraud (Hîla-i-bâtila). To employ the
technique called hîla before zakât becomes fard is makrûh
according to Imâm Muhammad, whereas it is jâiz (permissible)
according to Imâm Abû Yûsuf. Please see the final part of the
fortieth chapter.
The two hundred and seventy-fifth âyat of Sûra Baqara
purports: “Allah destroys completely the income and property
earned through usury. He lets none of it remain. But He increases
the property for which zakât is paid.” People who do not know or
believe this promise of Allâhu ta’âlâ’s, try to avoid paying zakât.
Some people resort to hîla-i bâtila in order not to pay the poor and
the government their due. One of the hîla-i-bâtilas they have been
practising recently is converting their cash into landed property,
such as a house or a store or an urban or rural land plot, in order
to avoid attaining the nisâb of zakât, and then renting out their
purchases. This trickery absolves them from the obligation of
paying zakât, only to entangle them with another obligation, the
obligation of supporting their poor relatives. And this second
situation, in its turn, is something they are quite unaware of.
Consequently, they not only neglect the fard of paying nafaqa to
their poor relatives, but also deprive themselves of the thawâb
(that Allâhu ta’âlâ promises) for Sila–i-rahm (visiting one’s
relatives). In addition, they confine to heaps of stone and earth the
money that could otherwise be utilized in trade, industry, and for
the country’s economic development. It goes without saying that in
consequence they remain forever deprived of the abundance and
wealth that Allâhu ta’âlâ promises to the givers of zakât.
While discoursing about the kinds of oath, Ibni ’Âbidîn,
Mawqûfât and the authors of many other books ‘rahmatullâhi
’alaihim ajma’în’, write that “If a person swears: I shall pay today so
much silver which I owe to so and so, and if he in lieu gives zuyûf, [1]
or silver more than half of which is copper, he will have fulfilled his
[1] Please see the ninth paragraph of the twenty-ninth chapter.
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