service of humanity and the amelioration of the condition of the poor has always been among the principal aims and objects of religion. It is, however, true that the same stress has not been laid on this principle in the previous religions, and, moreover, the institution of zakāt, like every other principle of religion, has been brought to perfection, along with the perfection of religion, in Islām.
One of the greatest problems facing humanity is undoubtedly the problem of the distribution of wealth, with which is also bound up the question of political power. The system of Capitalism which is the foundation-stone, so to say, of the materialistic civilization of modern Europe, has led to the concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands. Political power has followed in the wake of wealth. The insatiable thirst for wealth on the part of the capitalists, who are the real controllers of political power, has reduced many nations of the world to a state of slavery, and regular plunder has been legalized under different high-sounding phrases such as colonization, occupation, mandate, sphere of influence, and so on.
The reaction against Capitalism set in towards the middle of the nineteenth century. It came under the name of Socialism and gradually developed into what is now known as Communism. It holds Russia in its grip, perhaps as severely as Capitalism still holds other European countries. Whether, in Russia, it has come to stay is a question which only the future can decide. But there is one thing that strikes one as very strange, Communism, which had come in to liberate the people, is as much of a bondage as Capitalism. The autocracy of Czardom has only given place to the autocracy of the Soviet.
The question before us, however, is, has Communism, by state-ownership of all means of production, finally solved the great problem of the distribution of wealth? A few years are but as one moment or even less in world history. To say that because the five-year plan has accelerated production to an extent which could hardly be imagined, and that therefore the state-ownership of means of production is the solution of the problem, is to show overhastiness in drawing a conclusion. Who knows that the people entrusted with the