What about the non-Muslim Philanthropists?

Question Mark

What about all those altruists out there who are, as expected, good people; who do all good, humane and charitable works. In fact they have, as it appears, a pr oven track record of their philanthropy. Nevertheless, they are non-Muslims! What stand has Islam taken about them especially about all of their good works cur iously in the light of their non-Muslim beliefs! This enquiry may be intriguing and thus the topic of this brief paper. The Islamic stand on the issue is unequivocal and explicit. However, to understa nd it we would have to assume that on one fine morning you woke up with a renewe d patriotic zeal within you. And you marched straight into your country s military facility and somehow gotten into it. You began to serve the facility in whateve r capacity you could may be cleaning and housekeeping, say! Nevertheless, notwithstanding your pure patriotic intentions, in conjunction wit h apparently benevolent duty that you are discharging within the military facility , chances are high, in fact very high, that your act would be considered one bre ach of military protocol and security! You might well be seen as an offender who trespassed into the facility illegally. And as a consequence of this, you would p robably be handcuffed and prosecuted, not under civilian court of law but under the military judiciary which is generally more stringent than the former. And so we see that even though the intent was loyal and it was well corroborated with visibly good act(s), all of it summed up to nothing! Contrariwise, you the p atriot had to bear the brunt of offence against the military establishment! And this is serious. Because this is similar to the stand that Islam takes for non-M uslim philanthropists and their works! God compares the seemingly benevolent works of the unbelievers to the deluding m irage:

But the Unbelievers,- their deeds are like a mirage in sandy deserts, which the man parched with thirst mistakes for water; until when he comes up to it, he fin ds it to be nothing: But he finds Allah (ever) with him, and Allah will pay him his account: and Allah is swift in taking account. (Qur an 24:39)

Just like the efforts of the patriotic individual was nothing more than a self d elusion a mirage of serving the nation, similarly God does not count the works of the unbelievers to be in anyway helpful for them in the hereafter. In fact Allah (SWT) does not even consider the purportedly righteous works of th e unbelievers to be anything more than ashes which would be scattered by a tempest uous wind:

The parable of those who reject their Lord is that their works are as ashes, on which the wind blows furiously on a tempestuous day: No power have they over aug ht that they have earned: that is the straying far, far (from the goal). (Qur an 1 4:18)

Thus we find that there is hardly any recognition of the righteous philanthropic w orks that the disbelievers would discharge in this world. Such a stance of non-a ccreditation towards the apparently righteous works of the disbelievers/non-beli evers may follow immediately from the analogy of the military setup: just as wit hout prior and proper channeling and authorization, if any individual even if s/ he be a lawful citizen of the country breaks into the military facility with all good intentions and yet it would be considered unlawful; similarly, it is only logical to understand that without proper recognition of The Almighty who create d the unbelieving philanthropist in the first place, all his/her altruistic work s would be reckoned to nothing; in fact, our philanthropist might take a step be yond: s/he may have been well defiling his/her spiritual self by prostrating to mere stocks and stones while discharging the apparently charitable works; quite ob viously then, any such works would not be of any worth in the hereafter especial ly when considered in conjunction with such horrendous acts of spiritual abuse. This explains why Allah (SWT) declares,

And We shall turn to whatever deeds they did (in this life), and We shall make s uch deeds as floating dust scattered about. (Qur an 25:23)

Philanthropy, altruism, charity and all such acts of benevolence are indeed beau tiful and Islam obligates its believers to practice them; however, Islam also ar duously advocates that these acts must be wrapped duly within the cover of True Faith (i.e. the Faith lies central and integral to all acts). It is because the external acts philanthropic or otherwise should be a reflection of the internal faith that we harbor. And therefore, the outer faade of true faith that wraps var ious philanthropic acts would offer them their due recognition with God and woul d prove to be of any help in the hereafter. Because, if this would not have been the case, then even Satanists advocate philanthropy! We are sure that one could find Satanists who would be kind towards their pets, charitable towards the nee dy, so on and so forth. And yet none of these would add up to anything substanti al. Simply because their basic faith of worshipping Satan (!?) is vulgarly flawed. It is not our intent, however, to doubt the intentions of the myriad non-Muslim philanthropists who strive their best to serve humanity, however, if they do not want their works to be treated as mere ashes or as floating dust scattered about or if they do not want to be dodged then when it matters the most by that misleadi ng mirage of the sandy desert which happens to be nothing , then they would do extrem ely well by recognizing One True God and His religion and thereby do the first f avor of philanthropy upon themselves.

End Notes: Unless otherwise mentioned, all Qur anic texts taken from Yusuf Ali s Quran Tran slation.