What God says about your money

Once you've figured out what Christianity, Judaism or Islam preach about making and spending money, teach your kids early and often.
By Abby Ellin

Faiths usually offer parents very clear direction on child-rearing. Premarital sex, for instance? That's pretty much a no-no, no matter what deity you worship. Dietary rules can also be pretty straightforward -- no pork for Muslims and Jews, no beef for Hindus.

But when it comes to money, the picture is cloudier. What does the Bible or the Koran actually say about money? Does God want us to own a fleet of yachts? Or does he (or she) think suffering and hardship is noble?
Video: Does God want your kid to be rich?

Happily, the consensus among most religious leaders seems to be that the Almighty does not want you to live off food stamps and is quite happy for you to drive a Porsche. But Scriptures say that a portion of your earnings should be returned through gifts to charity and offerings to the church -- what some denominations call tithing.

Cantor Erik L. Contzius, of Temple Israel in New Rochelle, N.Y., is trying to instill these lessons in his 6-year-old son. Whenever the boy goes to Hebrew school, Contzius hands him a dollar to put in the tzedakah box for charity.
Video: Thou shalt not hoard your money

"If we teach it at a very young age to give, hopefully it will stick," Contzius says.

Carolyn Castleberry, a writer in Virginia Beach, Va., talks about this idea in her series of financial-empowerment books for women, based on Biblical principles.

"Proverbs 31 has been held up as a standard," says Castleberry, a mother of two who also writes a newsletter called "The Proverbs 31 Investor." The Old Testament passage -- which describes a virtuous woman as having a price "above rubies" -- is "about a woman who is a businessperson, a wife, she has a family, but she became an investor," Castleberry explains.
Video: What the Bible teaches

"She knew how to create passive income, she was a real-estate investor -- so she was providing for her family and also for generations, so she's a role model."

According to Castleberry, the Bible addresses the topic of money more than any other issue -- more than 2,000 passages discuss it. The No. 1 rule? "To tithe or give back," she says, quoting Malachi 3:10: "Bring to me the first of your possessions and I'll open up the skies of heaven."

The Bible also admonishes us to be good stewards of money (although here Christianity and Judaism differ from Islam, which forbids interest accrual).

A parable from Matthew discusses a boss who gave his three employees a certain amount of money.

Two of them invested it, while the third took his portion and buried it. When the boss returned, he was dismayed by the third man's actions.

"It wasn't enough," says Castleberry. "It's the whole 'use it or lose it' philosophy. So we need to learn to make money on our money."

But even if we've figured out what our God wants from us, how do we teach our kids?
Video: 9-year-old's money tips

"The Bible teaches us to train a child early, and when they are older they won't forget," Castleberry says. "I try to get kids focused on creating goals early, which comes from Proverbs 4:26: 'Know where you're headed and you'll sit on solid ground.'"

Steve Maxwell, 45, a commercial-real-estate investor, business owner and "financial fluency" teacher in Windsor, Colo., feels the same.

Maxwell's 15-year-daughter, Natalie, recently asked her father, a self-made millionaire and devout Christian, to teach a course on business and financial fluency for her and her friends. The group meets weekly and Maxwell gives them assignments: to start working on their financial statements, say, or to read a book on money and then teach the rest of the class.

He has encouraged each of his three kids to acquire a major asset, such as a business or property, while they are still in their teens. He, too, emphasizes the importance of giving back, mentioning a tenet from Proverbs 11:25: "A generous man will prosper, and he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed."

"My belief of that is that's not just talking about money -- you can be generous in lots of ways -- but it also does apply to money," Maxwell says.

Islam offers a slightly different perspective on finances, says Sohaib Sultan, 27, the Muslim chaplain at both Wesleyan University and Trinity College in Connecticut.

In addition to the prohibition on accumulating interest, he says, "the key teaching in Islam about money and finances is the idea of moderation -- the idea of balance, of maintaining a good livelihood for yourself but at the same time not being exuberant."

Sultan works with young children at the Muslim community center in Berlin, Conn., where he tries to teach them the importance of budgeting every month. "I want them to be very conscious of how they're spending their wealth," he says. "We try to instill the idea that we'll be held accountable to God for how we spend every penny."

Judaism sees spending as a way to share with others, says Allan M. Gonsher, an ordained rabbi in Kansas City.

"If you simply talk about money as dollars and quarters, then you really limit what money means in Judaism," says Gonsher, who devotes a chapter of his book -- "Allowance is Not a Bribe (And Other Helpful Hints for Raising Responsible Jewish Children)" -- to teaching children about money.

He recalls his grandmother always setting an extra plate at the dinner table so that there was room for a guest. "Money for us means bringing people into the family, helping people who don't have," he says. "That's a phenomenal concept that's related to money: Add another chicken to the chicken soup. Set up another plate. Pick up your clothes and take them to the Salvation Army."

[Source: MSN]

Islam and Honor Killings

By Zaid Shakir

One of the gravest charges levied against Islam, in terms of its alleged antipathy towards women, is the charge that it encourages a phenomenon known as honor killings. This un-Islamic practice consists of the murder of female family members who are seen as dishonoring their families through real or perceived acts, such as premarital sexual relations or unapproved dating.

This practice has absolutely no sanction in the Qur'an, the Prophetic practice, or in the evolved systems of Islamic law. In the case of fornication or adultery, the only way a charge can be levied against an individual, male or female, is through confession, which is discouraged, or by four people actually witnessing the male organ penetrating the female. Even if four people witnessed a naked man engaged with a naked woman, but could not actually testify that they witnessed penetration, their testimony would be rejected.

In a somewhat related issue, it should be noted that in three of the four Sunni schools of law, as is the case with all of the major Shiite schools, pregnancy is not a proof of fornication, as the possibility of rape exists in such a case. Therefore, if a single woman were to become pregnant, according to the overwhelming majority of Islamic jurists, there is no basis for punishing her. In the few well-publicized instances where a pregnant woman has been threatened with a punishment, the minority opinion of the Maliki School of law was unjustly evoked, as occurred in Nigeria[1], or criminal malfeasance occurred as is the case in Pakistan[2].

In the case of dating, there is no Islamically-mandated punishment for a male or a female seeing a member of the opposite sex against the wishes of their families. Hence, to kill a female guilty of one of these offenses is not some sort of Islamic punishment, it is cold-blooded murder, and no Islamic authority can argue otherwise.

The overwhelming majority of Muslim societies are free from such practices, although they do endure in some parts of the Middle East and South Asia. According to statistics released by the United Nations in 2000 there are approximately 5,000 deaths annually from "honor" killings.

Even if one death occurred due to such barbarity, it would be one too many, as the Qur'an emphasizes that whoever takes an innocent life without sanction it is as if the murderer has slaughtered the entirety of humanity (5:35).

To use the existence of such killings to smear Islam shows the desperation and misplaced priorities of those levying such attacks. Most of those deaths are the pathetic acts of sick individuals, who are far removed from the letter, as we have briefly shown above, and the spirit of Islam. An example of such an individual is Muhammad Riaz, a British Muslim of South Asian descent who died as a result of a fire he set to burn to death his wife and four daughters, allegedly because his wife resisted his attempt to arrange marriages for his daughters. His wife and daughters did perish in that fire. To present Riaz, whose daughters had neither fornicated nor dated, as anything other than a sick individual is a sad attempt to defame Islam and it teachings.

To attack Islam from this angle is a case of misplaced priorities because it distracts attention from far graver abuses of women that demand immediate redress. For example, the State Department estimates that approximately 800,000 women and girls are trafficked as sexual slaves annually. The overwhelming majority of these females are taken from and sent to nominally Christian countries. In spite of that, it would be disingenuous to use such statistics as an indictment against Christianity or Christian sexual ethics. This existence of such a practice is an affront to humanity and requires our collective attention.

Other issues that involve attacks against the persons and dignity of women such as rape and pornography are epidemic and require the immediate attention of the international community.

Saying this is not to minimize the gravity of so-called honor killings to the extent that they do occur in Muslim societies. As Muslims, we are commanded to be committed to justice. That commitment entails that as a community we oppose in the strongest terms "honor" killings and take immediate action to end such a practice in our communities. Practical steps include the following:

1. Emphasize that such killings have no sanction in the Qur'an, the Prophetic practice, or in Islamic law.
2. Declare anyone guilty of involvement in honor killings to be a cold-blooded murderer.
3. Encourage judicial authorities to enact the harshest punishments possible for anyone accused of involvement in such killings.
4. Educate our Muslim communities about the un-Islamic nature of honor killings, and the pressures, nuances, challenges and complications facing young Muslims in the West.
5. Work to eliminate the double standards and hypocrisy that exist in our communities, generally, concerning attitudes and standards relating to the indiscretions of males as opposed to females.

In conclusion, Islam honors the female, and values femininity. It is up to every Muslim to translate theoretical teachings in that regard into a beautiful reality that helps to elevate the status of women in all societies.

Notes
1 In cases where the Maliki school is evoked, I describe that as unjustly because every effort should be made to ward off accusation of a crime in such cases. If the majority opinion does that then it should be the basis of the ruling.

2 In the Pakistani cases the Hanafi school of law, which is universally followed in Pakistan, discounts the existence of pregnancy as a basis for proof of fornication or adultery. Hence, any effort to punish a woman who comes up pregnant, especially due to rape, is a crime and a perversion of justice.

http://www.newislamicdirections.com/nid/notes/islam_and_honor_killings/

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