Islam and Human Rights — Page 73
Economic Values 73 It is indeed the highest bounty of God that He should have endowed man with appropriate faculties and capacities and then subjected the universe to man’s beneficent service to enable him to achieve the fullest development of his faculties in every sphere of life. Yet some people, instead of putting their faculties to beneficent use in the service of their fellow beings and spending that which they possess for the same purpose, have a tendency to hold back, not realizing that even from the purely selfish point of view the greatest benefit is to be derived from beneficent spend ing and not from parsimonious holding back. This is the fundamental principle which is the basis of all prosperity, individual, national and universal. The Quran emphasizes this repeatedly. For instance: “Behold, you are those who are favoured by being called upon to spend in the way of Allah; but of you there are some who hold back, yet whoso holds back does so only to his own prejudice. It is Allah Who is All-Sufficient, and it is you who are needy” (47:38). Holding back renders a person progressively poorer in the true sense, inasmuch as he stultifies his faculties, and by putting that which he possesses out of service and out of circulation, renders it completely barren and unfruitful. The subject of charitable and beneficent spending