1. 天课的目标及其对个人的影响。

1. Objectives of zakah and its effects on the individual.

2. 天课的目标及其对社会的影响

2. Objectives of zakah and its effects on society.

长期以来，许多税收专家试图拉大税收与社会或人文问题之间的距离，以防止此类问题对税收收入产生不利影响。他们主张税收只能有一个目标，即为国库带来收入，否则就应保持“中性”。直到经历了深刻的社会变革、数次血腥革命和思想的巨大进步，财政专家才逐渐认识到：税收能够影响有价值的社会经济变革，可以用来缩小社会各阶层之间的经济差距，并能恢复社会的经济平衡。

For a long time, many taxation specialists tried to widen the gap between taxes and social or humanistic issues, in order to prevent any adverse effect of such issues on the proceeds of taxes, claiming that taxes must have only one objective, bringing income to the treasury, and must otherwise be "neutral." It took deep social changes, several bloody revolutions, and great progression of ideas until financial experts came to realize that taxes can affect valuable socio-economic changes, can be used to reduce the economic differences among social classes, and can restore economic balance in society.

在天课的历史上，从未发生过如此的动荡，因为天课自伊斯兰教创立之初起，作为伊斯兰的支柱之一，就是一项不可或缺的神圣功修。

There has been no such upheaval in the history of zakah, for from the beginning, zakah, as one of the pillars of Islam, was an essential and sacred rite of worship.

穆斯林怀着虔诚与诚挚之心履行此事，遵循先知（ﷺ）的训示："行为的善恶取决于意图，每个人所得的回报，都取决于他的意图。"以及经文所言："他们所被命令的，无非是："

Muslims pay it with devotion and sincerity, in accordance with the saying of the Prophet (p) "Deeds are [weighed] by intention, and each person will have [reward] according to his own intention,"1 and the verse "And they have been commanded no more than this:

"崇拜真主，对祂诚心归依，坚守正信，谨守拜功，完纳天课，这就是正确而端正的宗教。"2

to worship God, offering Him sincere devotion, being true [in faith], to establish regular prayer, and to practice zakah, and that is the religion right and straight."2

天课首先是一种对真主的顺从行为，也是一种自我净化，旨在使人为后世的永恒幸福做好准备。一个人的心灵一旦得到净化，灵魂一旦因完全遵从真主的命令与义务而圣洁，他便配得上后世的喜乐，成为"天使在使他们纯洁的状态下取走其生命，并对他们说：'愿你们平安！因你们生前的善行，你们进入乐园吧。'"[3]正是天课的这一层面，使它在《古兰经》的二十八处经文中与拜功联系在一起，在圣训中也有数十处提及，二者之间形成了牢不可破的联结，因此天课被称为拜功的姊妹。也正是天课的这一层面，使艾卜·伯克尔宣布对拒绝缴纳天课者发动战争，他说："以真主发誓，凡是将拜功与天课分开的人，我必定与之作战。"循此传统，教法学著作在敬拜篇章中，将天课的章节紧接在拜功章节之后。

Zakah is first of all a practice in obedience to God and a self-purification meant to prepare the human being for eternal happiness in the hereafter. Once a person's heart is purified and soul is sanctified by the complete commitment to God's orders and obligations, such a person becomes worthy of the joy of the afterlife as one of "Those whose lives the angels take in a state of purity, saying 'Peace be upon you, enter ye the Garden, because of [the good] which ye did."3 It is this aspect of zakah that ties it to prayer in twenty-eight places of the Qur'an and tens of saying in Sunnah, in an unbreakable bond of association that makes it known as the sister of prayer. It is also this aspect of zakah that Abu Bakr had in mind when he declared war against those who refused to pay it, stating, "By God, I shall indeed fight those who separate prayer from zakah." Following this tradition, the books of fiqh place chapters on zakah immediately after chapters on prayer in the parts devoted to worships.

伊斯兰教中，天课作为一种功修，其显而易见的首要目标，还辅以多项目标，包括道德、人文、社会和经济层面的目标；许多经文和圣训都确立了天课要实现这些目标。在早期穆斯林社会实行天课时，这些目标在不同程度上得到了实现；这些目标既关乎个人，也关乎社会，下面两章将对此加以探讨。

The obvious and essential objective of zakah as a worship is supplemented by moral, humanistic, social, and economic objectives which zakah is set to achieve by many verses and sayings. These objectives were fulfilled to various degrees when zakah was practiced in the early Muslim society; they concern the individual as wells as society, as will be studied in the following two chapters.