This is in response to “Charity and Publicity”, ‘Write Hand’by Ajaz-ul-Haque . To my understandingcharity is certainly a virtue of soaring magnitude and someone who is helpingpeople and having the feeling of making lives of others better is certainly praiseworthy.Looking at it at the mundane level a person taking such initiative, givingcharity or becoming instrumental for this cause is a super-human. I personallydon’t consider the ‘epsilon’ inadequacy committed by the people, NGOs or anysuch organisation during the process of raising and dispersal of funds. Herethe point which I want to put thrust upon is the purpose, the objective, theintension, the desire, the aspirations, the ambition or more specifically whatwe call in urdu is the neeyat for carrying out such an enterprise. The impetusfor being so benevolent and charitable is certainly given by the humanity whichI possess: if I see someone in need, living in a grief stricken conditions mysoul should impel me to help him out. My religion also teaches doing charity asmy obligation (to help this person out) and by doing so my Lord would becontended by this act of mine. This is magnanimity (which certainly isinculcated by my faith) and whatever I do, I do it for humanity without lookingat the cast, creed or colour of the person. Now looking on the other side ofit, I demonstrate philanthropy for getting a reward against it, that is I docharity only after calculating the reward my religion has promised me for doingso. Undoubtedly, I help the needy person out but now my neeyat is changed. Thistime I am not doing it out of humanity but for getting a (bigger) reward, thepurpose is served but with a different intension which provescounter-productive in certain cases. Here I would like to quote some examplesto substantiate my claim: A person who was raising funds for a CA patient cameto me and said about the patient and his inability to pay the money who wasgetting treated at PGI Chandigarh. To my curiosity, I just tried to probe if hehas been able to raise enough money for the treatment of the (patient) personand the excuses people had been making for manifesting their inability toextend their help are award winning. The most astonishing justification he hadgot from an (un)educated guy to whom the problem was explained he replied, “look I would happily offer some help if this was the month of fasting(mah-i-siyaum)”.
Another (bitter) experience I want to share is that: sometime before one of my relatives died and I went there (a place which is a bitfar from my home) and fortunately I was able to participate in his funeralprayers. A friend of mine who met me there was surprised (and happy too) to seeme there. During our conversation he started to demonstrate the expertise andcomprehension he holds about the reward for offering nemaz-e-jinazah and wastrying to explain qeeraat (the reward for participating in someone’s funeralprayers) to me. I was fixedly looking at him and giving him the impression thatI am listening to him very keenly.
The point I want to make here is; we need to perceivematters in a right perspective. We have to be wise enough to understand, thatcertain statements are purely metaphoric, if we are taught (by our religion)and made to understand abstractions by concretisation, we should not (as aresult) become self-centred. If our religion tries to make us understand in aneasier way let us not keep on calculating, adding and multiplying our gooddeeds. I personally am of the opinion that intension is the trump card, if Iperform my duties (for which I am being paid) with good intension I will berewarded for being charitable too and if I do charity with the intension ofgetting rewarded only I may end up getting nothing. Faith is something veryvery personal and of course of paramount importance. But let us not buryhumanity underneath the mis-interpreted and mis-understood religiosity. Wecannot be religious unless we are not human; if faith is a dew- drop thenhumanity is the only vessel which can hold it. Let us not be self-centred andact like robots towards our social responsibilities. If I am a doctor (I amassumed to be different/special or a super-human) I should not keep on watchingthe clock for finishing my duty hours I should be benevolent instead. If I amteacher (I am assumed to be an idol, an inspiration and a role model) my dutiesdoes not end once I come out of my class and if I am a preacher I should notrestrict my sermons within the four walls of the prayer hall. Let us beresponsible, let us play big, let us think big, let us have the desire todeserve and more importantly let us be passionately charitable.