In the Spirit: Islam teaches support for workers, fair compensation, speaker says
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20 hours ago • DOUG ERICKSON | Wisconsin State Journal | derickson@madison.com | 608-252-6149(6) Comments
In the Spirit
Reporter Doug Erickson explores matters of faith, values and ethics in Wisconsin.
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The Muslim faith teaches that work is sacred and a form of worship and that fair employee compensation is paramount, a prominent Islamic author and researcher told a Madison audience Thursday.
“Workers and employers have a relationship of brotherly love and family, not patron to subordinate,” Dalia Mogahed said at the 14th-annual faith-labor breakfast, which just concluded at the Madison Labor Temple.
The breakfast is sponsored by the Interfaith Coalition for Worker Justice and was hosted this year by the South Central Federation of Labor.
Mogahed was born in Cairo and grew up in Madison, graduating from UW-Madison. She is the former executive director of and senior analyst for the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies. She is the co-author of the book, “Who Speaks for Islam?: What a Billion Muslims Really Think.” She now runs a consulting firm in Washington, D.C., specializing in Muslim societies and the Middle East.
A few quotes from her talk:
The Prophet taught that your employees are your brothers upon whom God has given you authority. So if a Muslim has another person under his control, he or she should feed them with the like of what one eats and clothe them with the like of what one wears. And you should not overburden with that which they cannot bear, and if there is excessive work, you must help them with their jobs. This is understood to be a very clear signal that employers and employees are not on two different levels where one has the open invitation to exploit each other. They are equals. Employers should think of employees as members of their families.”
“There must be fair compensation, but it doesn’t stop there. The Prophet taught that an employee shall be given his wages before the sweat dries — the idea of prompt compensation. And thus, Islamic jurists have suggested that payment must be at least at the level that would enable employees to fulfill all theirs and their family’s essential needs in a dignified manner.”
“There’s also some very, very important and stern warnings against failing to fairly compensate your workers. One teaching says this: God says, I will be against three people on the day of resurrection. Now this is God being the enemy of three different kinds of people. One, someone who makes a promise in my name and violates it. Two, (someone) who sells a free person into slavery and takes the price of that sale. And the third is someone who employs a person, takes his full day’s work, and then does not pay him his wage. That’s a very stern warning guaranteeing fair compensation.”
She concluded by stressing the importance of interfaith work, something that was reinforced for her after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, she said. On the first Friday after the attacks, Mogahed said she and her husband debated whether to attend their local mosque in Pittsburgh, fearing there might be protests or an angry mob.
They decided to go, and when they reached the mosque, the parking lot was full and “half of the congregation were members of other faiths who had come to show us support and solidarity,” she said.
At that point, the Madison audience broke into applause. “That’s applause for America,” Mogahed said.
The Pittsburgh community had engaged in deep interfaith cooperation for years, laying the foundation for the response after 9/11, she said.
“In that moment of need, in that moment where we could have had a very different outcome, America’s promise was kept,” she said. “That is the power of interfaith cooperation.”
You can reach reporter Doug Erickson at derickson@madison.com or 608-252-614
Categories: Accepting Islam, Islam in the press
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