'Shariah in America' Group's FAQ: Zakat is for "Those in Jihad"

For those who have the courage to see what the enemy says, all you have to do is look. We gave you ICNA in their own words and . Others found ICNA selling books on jihad. Now Shariah Finance Watch goes right to ICNA to confirm that zakat is for jihad. via Zakat for Jihad.

The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) was identified as a Muslim Brotherhood organization in the Holy Land Foundation prosecution, the largest successful terrorism financing prosecution in US history.

Recently, ICNA announced that they are embarking upon a $3 million propaganda campaign to promote Shariah in America:

ICNA has a division called ICNA Relief, which professes to do all sorts of good works. On ICNA Relief’s web site, they have a section on Zakat, including a Zakat “calculator” which helps Muslims figure out how much money they need to donate to zakat (a form of tithing in Islam):

http://icnarelief.org/site/index.php/articles/zakat-calculator

Note that on ICNA Relief’s zakat calculator page, there is a link to a page labeled “FAQs.” As you might expect, FAQ stands for Frequently Asked Questions:

http://zakat.110mb.com/index.php?p=1_5_FAQs

Notice that there are several questions on the FAQ page.

Number 15 is of particular interest:

Whom Should we Pay Zakaat to

If you follow that link you come to a new page entitled “Who is entitled to receive Zakat?”

http://zakat.110mb.com/index.php?p=1_12

Answer Number 8 for the question “Who is entitled to receive Zakat?” is the proverbial “smoking  gun.”

8. Fi Sabeelillah: Those who are away from home in the path of Allah. Those in Jihaad, those seeking knowledge or a stranded Haji may be assist with Zakat if they are in need.

Those in Jihaad…(usually spelled Jihad).

No doubt, ICNA will complain that we have misinterpreted or misunderstood the meaning of the term “Jihad.”

ICNA will claim that Jihad simply means to “struggle” or “strive.”

Balderdash.

Let us examine definitions of Jihad from two authoritative sources.

Click over to SFW to read how authoritative Muslim texts from Muslims themselves define jihad. A few examples:

On page 599 of Reliance of the Traveler, readers can find the following passage:

o9.0 JIHAD

(O: Jihad means to war against non-Muslims, and is etymologically derived from the word mujahada, signifying warfare to establish the religion…

The scriptural basis for jihad, prior to scholarly consensus is such Koranic verses as:

(1) “Fighting is prescribed for you” (Koran 2:216);

(2) “Slay them wherever you find them” (Koran 4:89);

(3) “Fight the idolators utterly” (Koran 9:36);

and such hadiths as the one related by Bukhari and Muslim that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said:

“I have been commanded to fight people until they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and perform the prayer, and pay zakat.

Update: We wanted the focus of the post to be on ICNA, but a reader noted Obama’s support for zakat, which we covered in 2009: Obama to ensure pillar of Islam, zakat, easier

Many more posts on zakat/jihad in the archives.