Thursday, February 22, 2007

Effective distribution mechanism

Britain abolished the slave trade 200 years ago this week. Its landmarks are an abiding legacy of cruelty - Read


Islam has long successfully abolished slavery. During Prophet time, Islam slowly and effectively had abolished slavery practiced in pre-Islamic Arabs via its distributive measures like zakat and several forms of penalty (i.e Penalty for a man who has sexual relationship during the day of Ramadhan is to free 60 slaves).

Monday, February 12, 2007

How zakat boosts productivity

In a nutshell, zakat is a penalty to savers. People who love to accumulate wealth without using it productively will be affected by zakat. Say if you have $ 1 million and now you decide just to lock yr money in a bank and get interest. This attitude creates a lazy and unprogressive society.

In Islamic economics, $ 1 million will not give you any interest income since riba = 0 and not just that, if you just keep the money idle for long period of time, you must pay 2.5% zakat out of it. Year by, year, yr $ 1 million will be eaten up by zakat. Thus, you have to think of some ways to make full use of the $ 1 million productively. This is just one way how zakat can boost productivity and create real economy.

Thursday, February 08, 2007