What It Means - Day 210

"It may be argued that a well-to-do person is not obliged to pay for the relief of want except by way of a loan, and that no donation can be required of him once has has discharged his due by giving his Alms. If could also be argued that he is nevertheless required to make a donation and that lending is impermissible, i.e. it is not permissible to burden the poor with the acceptance of a loan. There is no unanimity on this question."
Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Inner Dimensions of Islamic Worship

I chose this passage, another from al-Ghazali's work, for a couple reasons. First off, it continues our earlier discussion about the importance of aiding the poor in Islam. Here the point is made by some that the requirement of unreservedly aiding the poor is so essential that even giving a loan would be unacceptable; essentially, that you should always just give the money with no thought of getting it back. In classic thought there is never interest charged on a loan, and this is taking it a step further. Secondly, this passage shows that there is no total agreement on this point in that some would argue that once you have met your required giving it would be OK to give more in the form of a loan, but that in the end there "is no unanimity on this question." It shows how these issues have been discussed and argued for centuries, and sometimes no clear answer was ever reached. In fact, even the issues of whether or not we've reached definitive conclusions on this arguments is, well, still argued. We've discussed the notion of the gates of Ijtihad and the notion that the main decisions have been reached centuries ago and thus the gates are now closed. Others would argue that the gates can never be closed because scholars should always be studying and arguing these issues.