irshaad.net

The Qur’an places the responsibility and moral burden of sadaqa (and of compassion towards those who suffer) upon individual Muslims - it makes each of us responsible for acting to relieve the suffering of those in difficulty. This is perhaps because it does not want to transfer such duties entirely to institutions, to lock it up within governmental agencies or within the systems of any given time as these are susceptible to political, social, economic, or ideological stratification. They are susceptible to falling into hierarchical layers based not on moral superiority or deep knowledge but based on accumulation of wealth and on the control of the organs of political influence - based on lobbying, currying favor, or altering rules and laws in order to benefit the already wealthy, to favor those who are already influential and thus to grow the power of institutions that further economic imbalance. In such conditions the destitute are cut adrift - they may dwell in a land where they are surrounded by wealth in all its material and economic forms but the keys to this wealth are locked up within the convolutions of the system itself - so that in the midst of wealth people perish from poverty. Bringing relief (for the sake of God) to those in distress becomes an elevated responsibility connected with the deepest wellsprings of faith - those who act in such a fashion are like the hand of God, a living response to the Qur’anic verse:

“Who answers the distressed one when he calls upon Him and removes the distress - He will make you elevated in the earth….” (Qur’an 27:62)