Letter from Saudi Arabia: Age-old system of alms-giving becomes a thing of the past

As soon as the prayers finished at the mosque last Friday, an old man stood up from the first row and started urging the faithful to help him as he was faced with immense problems and had no financial means. There was nothing unusual in this.

This has happened many times in the past. People had been commonly seeking help after prayers, especially on Fridays. They would then squat by one of the exit points of the masjid where people could donate whatever they felt like.

This time, however, there was a difference. As soon as the old, feeble man, holding a stick in his hand to support him, physically this time, stood up and started exhorting the people present at the congregation, the otherwise very polite and humble imam of the mosque stood up.

Using the microphone at his disposal, and in the process almost ensuring that the voice of the old feeble man is no more audible, he urged the old man not to seek alms in the mosque as it has now been forbidden for any one to collect money inside the mosque. If any one was found to be organising collection of money, the law enforcing agencies might even charge him, he continued.

Then turning to the people present in the congregation, he said look; we are no more allowed to organise fund raising campaigns for charity work. In the mosques this is no more being permitted. But in the society, poverty is a major issue.

A section of people are finding it hard to meet both their ends. They are in dire need of your help. Now that the existing charity channels have been prohibited, in many ways, from continuing their work, it is imperative for the well off people to look for ways themselves to ensure that help reaches the common needy people.

He also stressed that with the blessed month of Ramadan just round the corner, it is all the more a necessity that people should look for ways so that zakat and other charity reaches the needy people and they do not stay deprived.

What a pertinent comment! One just could not disagree with the diatribe of the learned khateeb of the mosque. Indeed for last few weeks, young boys who generally used to be present in the mosques collecting money for various charity organisations were conspicuous by their absence.

Nor even the women, commonly present especially after Friday prayers, seeking financial help were to be seen for last some weeks. I had really no clue why have they all disappeared.

Indeed subconsciously I had felt that from the usual kaleidoscope of mosques after the Friday prayers, something was indeed missing. But it was only when the imam pointed out the absence of charity collectors, because of the new regulations, that I fully realised the transition and the changed scenario.

In the absence of the organised charity collection, as has been the hallmark of this otherwise very religious and conservative society, and especially with the fasting month of Ramadan, generally regarded as the season for giving as much charities as possible fast approaching, it would indeed be an arduous task for the faithful to reach the needy sections of the population, every one concedes.

And in the absence of this source of funding, the conditions of the poor sections of the society, so desperately dependent on charity and alms, could turn disastrous and pathetic.

In its wake it may also carry many social upheavals, sociologists feel. However, the post 9/11 world that matters is so obsessed with the issue of charities, specially the Saudi charities, that they are hell bent to destroy this age old system.

No more stalls are present at public places collecting charity for these causes. The point the masters are failing to take that in the absence of charity work in the society, the condition of the poor masses would deteriorate further.

And as the English novelist Charles Dickens has been portraying through his novels, 'Poverty is the greatest crime ever committed by man,' these large section of deprived men and women would be a source of constant discontent, a concern not only for the local authorities but also for our friends theorising things from distant worlds. Is any one out there tuning to the feeble murmurings from this part of the world?