Today, I encourage you to practice a simplistic form of one of the five pillars of Islam. It’s the third one and it’s called the Zakat, or almsgiving. In Islam, It is customarily 2.5% (or 1⁄40) of one’s total savings and wealth above a specific threshold each lunar year.
If you are visiting Qatar to enjoy the World Cup, I suggest you go ahead and donate 2.5% of the total cost of this trip to a charity of your choice.
You can do it in Qatar, or use your phone to donate to any trusted organization back in your country, or anywhere around the world, but make sure you do it today, because we all know what happens to things that get lost in the limbo of the to-do lists.
If you don’t know any charity organizations off the top of your head, you can always send the same amount (2.5 %) to one or more of the legitimate Zakat receivers which are mentioned in the Quran: The poor, the needy, Zakat collectors, recent converts to Islam, those to be freed from slavery, those in debt, stranded travellers and finally, in the cause of Allah (and that last part was interpreted by scholars to mean either those who fight for the sake of Allah or as an umbrella term covering good deeds like helping schools or preaching Islam)
If you are not a Muslim you may either give your 2.5% to a poor person you know or a local organization that takes care of, for example, poor orphans.
Giving feels good, we all know that, but one feels incomparably better when they know that Allah is going to reward them for that kind act, with an everlasting paradise.
