1. A Part of Celebration – Zakaat
Eid came by, like it does every year. I look forward to this day every time and wait for the
opportunity to celebrate. Looking forward to Eid, it passed into me that Eid-ul-Fitr is the second
major celebrations for Muslims and Muslims have their other responsibilities. Keeping fast was
one of the things that was in good practice, unfortunately I never thought of the other thing-
Zakaat. Amongst the many rituals that my parents had performed for God, Zakaat was one of
the occasional ones performed every Eid by both.
My aged parents asked me of a favor this Eid- to follow their example and observe Zakaat as a
practicing Muslim. As they mentioned, “Zakaat bring happiness to the soul- a feeling that you
cannot observe regularly.” Therefore, I arranged to distribute clothes amongst the poor. The
idea seemed simple and perfectly logical- everyone wears something new on Eid so should
people who cannot. In Bangladesh, most people can manage some new clothes- if they try.
When I observed the poorer families, I saw that the parents bought a new cloth for each of the
children and they bought something for themselves. They waited for someone to give them
something as a part of Zakaat- that serves the regular purpose of wearing new clothes.
However, all that they received were usually cheaper clothes that do not suit Eid. Thus, to make
Eid special, I invested a fair amount of money for buying some good clothes. That way, we will
not only distribute clothes but also distribute happiness. Distributing happiness and the joy of
the celebration will glorify my purpose for giving Zakaat.
I started from home one evening during Ramadan to get the clothes and spent a whole evening
shopping for clothes. According to my decisions, I will buy a whole set of clothes for each
person, they will all be amongst my personal choice- things I would prefer wearing for Eid, I will
buy most for children set and a few for adults and lastly every set will not resemble another. I
followed each of these perfectly and gladly nothing stood in the way when doing so.
It came to me that the distribution should happen before Eid. Unlike the way my parents
showed- where they distributed their object of Zaka’ah on the specific day of Eid- I distributed
the things very selectively amongst the needy ones. Some people criticized my decision of
distributing good clothes but again, I was distributing happiness to earn the “happiness of the
soul”, I had to make people happy. I judged from my point-of-view and it came to me that I will
make others happy with what makes me happy- we all are humans with similarities in taste.
Thus my religious and ancestral ritual of observing Zaka’ah ended happily with my distribution
of happiness and earning of the “happiness of soul”.