60 No god but God
Nor did Muhammad’s move toward egalitarianism end with
reforming the Law of Retribution. In Yathrib, he categorically out-
lawed usury, the abuse of which was one of his chief complaints
against the Meccan religio-economic system. To facilitate the new
economy, he established his own market, which, unlike the one con-
trolled by the Banu Qaynuqa, charged no tax on transactions and no
interest on loans. While this tax-free market eventually became a
point of conflict between Muhammad and the Banu Qaynuqa, the
Prophet’s move was not a means of antagonizing the Qaynuqa, but a
further step toward alleviating the divide between the ridiculously
wealthy and the absurdly poor.
Using his unquestioned religious authority, Muhammad insti-
tuted a mandatory tithe called zakat, which every member of the
Ummah had to pay according to his or her means. Once collected, the
money was then redistributed as alms to the community’s neediest
members. Zakat literally means “purification,” and was not an act of
charity but of religious devotion: benevolence and care for the poor
were the first and most enduring virtues preached by Muhammad in
Mecca. Piety, the Quran reminds believers, lies “not in turning your
face East or West in prayer... but in distributing your wealth out of
love for God to your needy kin; to the orphans, to the vagrants, and to
the mendicants; it lies in freeing the slaves, in observing your devo-
tions, and in giving alms to the poor” (2:177).
Perhaps nowhere was Muhammad’s struggle for economic redis-
tribution and social egalitarianism more evident than in the rights and
privileges he bestowed upon the women in his community. Beginning
with the unbiblical conviction that men and women were created
together and simultaneously from a single cell (4:1; 7:189), the Quran
goes to great lengths to emphasize the equality of the sexes in the eyes
of God:
God offers forgiveness and a great reward,
For men who surrender to Him, and women who surrender to Him,
For men who believe, and women who believe,
For men who obey, and women who obey,
For men who speak truth, and women who speak truth,