Prayer (Salat

one Bushair ibn Khasasiya. The latter had come to the Prophet to express his readiness to swear allegiance to the true faith. But first he was anxious to know on what conditions he could do so, and what he should have to surrender. When the Prophet specified what he would have to accept on becoming a Muslim, Bushair said that two of the precepts, Zakat and Jihad, would be difficult for him to follow, and requested that he be exempted from them. The Prophet, who had extended his hand to receive Bushair’s pledge of faith withdrew it saying: “O Bushair how can you enter heaven without Zakat and Jihad?” The apostasy which grew after the Prophet’s death arose out of resistance to the payment of Zakat. The ancient Arabs had very limited economic resources, and many tribes, therefore, wanted zakat to be excluded from Islamic obligations. On the plea that “the man who brought divine grace to the Muslims has left this world.” (Kanzul Ummal, Vol. III, p. 142), these newly converted Muslim tribes made it plain that they no longer felt obliged to obey the economic orders of the Islamic government. But they did not object to anything other than the payment of Zakat. They still called themselves Muslims, and even observed the rituals of prayer and fasting as enjoined in the Quran. Even so, the first caliph said “By God, I will fight those who make a distinction between Salat and Zakat (prayer and almsgiving) because Zakat is wealth to which God has a right.” (Bukhari, Muslim, Ahmad) There are many verses of the Quran which emphasise that “all wealth is God’s” (24:33) and that all bounties come from God (67:15), (17:20). This being so, had God held all goods and wealth to be His share, He had the right to do so. But He called only one portion His and left the rest to His servants. The Quran says: “Pay the due thereof upon the harvest day.” (6:141) Canonically, Zakat was enforced in the fifth year after the Hijrah, although in an unspecified form. Having been considered desirable right from the beginning of the Prophet’s mission, it is mentioned even in those verses that were revealed in Makkah. In the same year a group of Muslims migrated from Makkah