24 - 30 January 2002
Issue No.570
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 24 - 30 January 2002 Issue No.570 |
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Who's the poorer?
A storm of controversy has erupted over reports of a bill bringing collection of zakat under government control. But the Ministry of Finance says it has all been a storm in a teacup, reports Mona El-Nahhas
In the past month, newspapers and talk shows have been brimming over with heated debate over a supposed plan by the government to subsume the responsibility of collecting zakat (alms given by Muslims to the poor). The public fiercely attacked the plan, allegedly drawn up by the Ministry of Finance, but the whole row has virtually dissolved into farce, as it is now unclear whether there was ever such a plan. Officials at the ministry have denied proposing any such law, instead writing off the controversy as a "fabrication by the press."
Legal experts told Al-Ahram Weekly that it was unlikely a law bringing zakat collection under the control of the government would ever see the light of day -- a position also held by most political observers. Many government critics dismiss the idea as ruse designed to enlarge the state budget. The issue was ripe material for political cartoonists, who cunningly suggested that given the country's current economic conditions, it is the state which needs the zakat more than anybody else.
The dispute arose when several newspapers ran stories saying that the Ministry of Finance was preparing a new law for zakat. The reports claimed that the government was aiming to decrease the deficit in the state budget -- which this year reached LE20 billion -- by collecting zakat and using it to help fund social insurance, housing, health and other social sectors. The ministry was said to have requested the help of one of Al- Azhar University's religious centres in drafting the law.
But if there was ever such a plan, it was dead on arrival at Al-Azhar. Among the numerous religious scholars who adamantly opposed such a law was the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar himself, Sheikh Mohamed Sayed Tantawi. Ministry officials promptly sought to quash the rumours. "We never thought of issuing a zakat law. News published about this is nothing but a fabrication," Abdel-Fattah El-Gebali, counsellor to the finance minister, told the Weekly. But reliable sources insist that the ministry had been in the process of preparing the law, but scrapped the plan when it provoked public fury. Inside sources also maintain that Sheikh Tantawi's disapproval was a key factor in Finance Minister Medhat Hassanein's decision to shelve the law.
During one of the symposia organised by Al- Azhar University, Tantawi made his opposition to the suggested plan clear. Noting that many people are suspicious of how the state spends its money, Tantawi suggested that people would evade paying zakat the way they do paying taxes. Aside from public mistrust of the state, Tantawi added another powerful counterpoint. Pointing to the many religious and social institutions capable of collecting and administering zakat, Tantawi said he wondered why the government was suddenly so keen on playing the same role. Al-Azhar is obviously one such institution.
Mohamed Moussa, who heads the People's Assembly legislative committee, took the side of the opposition: "I don't think there is any reason for the state to interfere in people's lives this way, imposing itself on sensitive religious issues like zakat," he said. Moussa went on to question the means by which the state would determine who qualifies for zakat and the amount for collection.
Dismissing the proposed move as "unconstitutional," Moussa noted that it would exempt Christians, hence contradicting the constitutional principle that all Egyptian citizens are equal before the law.
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