Islam - Its Meaning for Modern Man — Page 262
262 this obligation is given legal form and is made effective through legal sanctions, but the greater part is secured by voluntary effort put forth through a desire to achieve the highest moral and spiritual benefits for all concerned. In fact, this supplementing of legal obligations which secure the irreducible minimum with moral obligations to be discharged through voluntary effort runs through every part of the Islamic system. Its operation can be observed in every sphere. For instance, there are the obligatory Prayer services, and supererogatory Prayers, and prayer and remembrance of God at all other times. There is the obligatory fast during the month of Ramadhan and supererogatory fasts at other times. There is the obligation upon those who can afford it to perform the pilgrimage once, but umra may be performed at any time, and the pilgrimage itself may be repeated as often as a person desires. The same principle holds in the economic sphere. The object of the Islamic economic system is to secure the widest and most beneficent distribution of wealth through institutions set up by it and through moral exhortation. Wealth must remain in constant circulation among all sections of the community and should not become the monopoly of the rich (59:8). Islam recognises the diversity of capacities and talents, which is in itself beneficent, and consequently the diversity in earnings and material rewards (4:33).