Imad Al-Saqqaf
Taiz Bureau Chief
In the last interview with Dr. Abdul-Wali Al-Shamiri, Chairman of Ibda’ Foundation for Art and Culture emphasized that there were many difficulties that hinder the progress of art and literature among which is the lack of financial and moral support for Yemeni creative talents. He criticized the cultural institutions for not communicating with each other. He was optimistic about the future of culture, art and literature in Yemen. He also emphasized that our customs, traditions and other reasons made the Yemeni woman isolated from literary, cultural and artistic field.

This part focuses on other two pioneer cultural institutions to give a brief account about. They are Bakatheer Establishment for Literature and Arts and the General Authority of Books.
First, YT interviewed Chairman of Bakatheer establishment, Mr. Abdullah Mohammed Al-Khyari

Q: Could you give us a brief account on the establishment and its objectives?
A: The objectives of the establishment are:
1- Contributing to and promoting all forms of literature.
2- Contributing to preservation of the entity of the Yemeni society, deepening awareness of the Islamic civilization in the society and overcoming the effects of the cultural onslaught.
3- Paying attention to various Yemeni arts, encouraging young writers and talents and publishing their works so that the ambitions of the Yemeni nation come true.
4- Establishing and consolidating cultural, scientific and artistic intercommunication between other establishments and attentively studying other modern human cultures to promote the Yemeni civilization.

Q: What’s your comment on the large number of cultural establishments and having no palpable benefit?
A: I am optimistic and there is hope that the performance of those establishments would improve and the society would experience their benefit in the future. With all this immense culture, heritage, large area, strategic location and different civilizations that were in it, Yemen must have more cultural establishments. If the economic conditions improve and the conditions of society get better, this will be reflected on culture and art because for the time being most people are wrapped up in securing basic needs and consider culture and arts as luxury.

Q: Why does the establishment choose to intercommunicate with some particular authors? Does the establishment have affiliation to any party?
A: With no exception, we intercommunicate with all authors and there are many different authors in the establishment. Honestly, I don’t know their party affiliations. Besides, The culture and arts that we have will enable us to go past parties. Culture always towers above narrow-minded partisan affiliations. Honest, high artistic works will always have their sway. These are our standards by which we can serve the issues of the Yemeni nation and regain its role and fulfill its ambitions.

Then YT interviewed Khaled Abdullah Al-Rowiashan, Chairman of the General Authority of Books.

Q: Would you kindly give us an idea about the Authority?
A: The General Authority of Books is a governmental authority that is supervised by the Ministry of Culture. It is meant for publishing cultural books, establishing and directing public libraries.

Q: Do culture and creative productions exist in the presence of those too many cultural institutions?
A: The spread of various cultural institutions during the 90s in Yemen is a good phenomenon though most of them are concerned with the media. Along with the new research centers, they are politically influenced and thus culture becomes just a chassis.

Q: With whom do you intercommunicate? Does the Authority belong to any particular party?
A: We intercommunicate with all writers. What proves this is the publications by the Authority and the libraries in different governorates. The Authority does not belong to any party. It is a governmental general cultural authority.

Q: Do you really evaluate the literary works when publishing them? What are the standards that you follow to evaluate them? For whom do you publish?
A: Yes, and the standards depend on fitness and importance of the subject. That is to say, the language of the subject must be correct and the idea proper. A committee of the most notable cultured and sophisticated people decides whether the subjects are fit for publishing.

Q: What are your concerns and ambitions?
A: I think that our biggest concern and ambitions are to cover the governorates and big cities with libraries for public to read. We have already opened 10 libraries during the last two years. Underway are some libraries to be opened in other cities. We are aspiring at publishing ‘The Modern Yemeni Artistic Heritage’ in a thicker edition to reflect the civilized and ingenious face of this country.

Prepared by:
Ismail Al-Ghabery
Yemen Times
The Muslim community is a practical and caring community. It recognizes the value of material well-being and the fact that people naturally stand in need of one another. The major instrument for ensuring a caring and healthy community is the institutions of Zakaat.

Zakaat and Social Welfare
Fore as long as humans are humans, who have differing capacities and motivations for economic action, there will be some who are poor. Indeed the majority of humankind are now afflicted by poverty.
Every human being carries the Divine amaanah or trust to transform the elements of nature into sources of nutrition and comfort, of wisdom and beauty, efficiency and enjoyment for himself and others.
Built into this amaanah or trust is the requirement on those who have been blessed with wealth and means, to spend out of their substance on those in deprivation and misery. Islam teaches people that the poor and the deprived have a “title” or “right” in the wealth of the rich (70:24-25) and constantly exhorts the rich to meet that obligation. In this sense, the rich stand in need of the poor. If they do not fulfill this “right” or the poor, they will be called to account.
While voluntary sadaqah or charity is encouraged and its scope extended so that even the poor can offer sadaqah (in the shape of a smile for example), Islam has established the institution of Zakaat to make concern for the poor of permanent and compulsory duty.
Zakaat consists of an annual contribution of two and a half percent of one’s income or “appropriated wealth” to public welfare. The rate of zakaat on other types of wealth such as agricultural product and jewelry is more. It is incumbent on minors and adults, males and females, living or dead. After debts, Zakaat is deducted from the inheritance of any deceased Muslim.
A “Appropriated Wealth” excludes debts and liabilities, household effects (except jewelry) required for living; and land, buildings, and capital materials used in or for production. Zakaat is due on current year’s income as well as on the accumulated incomes of the past and on all stocks in trade.
Islamic law empowers the Islamic state or community to collect the Zakaat, and keep a distinct account of it, separate from the public funds of the state treasury.
Zakaat funds must be spent on the eight categories specified in the Qur’an namely, the poor and the destitute, the wayfarer, the bankrupt, the needy converts, the captives, the collectors of Zakaat, and in the cause of God. The last category allows Zakaat funds to be used for the general welfare of the community—for education of the people, for public works, and for defense of Islam and the Muslim community.

Benefits of zakaat
1. Being religious duty, it offers the donor the inner satisfaction of a duty accomplished. The funds on which zakaat has been paid bring satisfaction and reward in this world and the next; funds on which no zakaat has been paid will bring suffering and punishment in this world and the hereafter. The very word zakaat means ‘sweetening’ and it implies that those funds on which no zakaat has been paid are ‘bitter’. The word zakaat also means purifying.
2. Zakaat makes for social welfare and solidarity and eliminates class and economic barriers, class animosity and hatreds; it eliminates arrogance on the part of the giver and humiliation on the part of the receiver.
3. The need to pay zakaat acts as a stimulus to investment of income in productive enterprise, for capital that is allowed to remain idle would progressively diminish in zakaat levies. Invested in production, it adds to society’s wealth and could help in job creation. Zakaat also has the basic meaning “to grow”: wealth grows with spending and investment.
4. Zakaat is a great promoter of wealth circulation throughout society, which is one of the main features of any healthy economy. The Qur’an condemns the accumulation and circulation of wealth in the hands of the rich only.

Mohammad
Al-Hakeemi
Yemen Times, Taiz
Fasting was prescribed to Muslims in the first year of Hijra in the month of Ramadan in which the Holy Qur'an was revealed. In the Holy Qur'an, it is mentioned that it was sent down at the night of Al-Qadr and this indicated that the night of Al-Qadr is in the month of Ramadan. It is a blessed night in which worshipping God equals a thousand months (about 83 years). What is meant by Al-Qadr is honor and of great importance. It is said that it was called so because the earth becomes full of angels and at every span there is an angel who praises God. The value of the night of Al-Qadr is great for if a person succeeded in worshipping God in it, all his sins would be forgiven. This is because in that night God’s mercy prevails. It is said that it is on the 27 th night of Ramadan. There are many evidences for that like the number of words in Surat Al-Qadr is thirty and the word Hya (it) in the same Surat is three letters and the number of the letters of the Sura is 114 which is the same number of Suras of the Holy Qur'an. Although Al-Qadr is a night in Ramadan, it is not known which night it is exactly for fear that people would only worship God at that night. The best thing to be done in it is to make a Muslim happy by relieving him from a distress or to invoke God for a need to be fulfilled (so that one believes in God).
Since the Prophet Mohammed (Peace and Prayers be Upon Him) used to seclude himself in the mosque during the last ten days of Ramadan, Muslims do the same. To seclude oneself means to stay in the mosque and not go out of it during the ten days of Ramadan except for doing something important close to the mosque. One must not go home until the seclusion period he specified for himself is over so that he may come across that holy night.
Some religious men say that this night can be recognized by some signs. It is said that the sun in the morning of that night is warm, the evening is cold, dogs do not bark, and that the sky is clear and bright and so on. What happens is that some people feel that a heavenly light enters their hearts or houses as a person mentioned that this happened to him twice in the presence of his wife and little daughter last Ramadan. Whatever the case, people should not care about the signs of that night. They should care more about how to worship God to the utmost during that night and invoke Him for their needs and mercy. Sheik Mohammed Bin Yahya Abdul-Muti said that all those above-mentioned signs of Al-Qadr night are not true for they were not mentioned in the Holy Qur'an.

In the villages of Taiz and most mosques in Yemen people usually wear white clothes and put on perfumes and hold session for reading the Holy Qur'an or reciting Mawaled, religious hymns praising the Prophet. Sessions over, the people go out reciting poems by Sophist religious men.

Other Economic Institutions
Zakaat is only the minimum contribution to social welfare in a community. There are other economic institutions that a society would need to develop to preserve its strength and integrity.
A Muslim community needs to have its own institutions for banking and finance, for thrift and insurance, its own investment and consumer priorities that would be in conformity with the moral and legal code of Islam. This requires new thinking and new initiatives. This is within the reach of any community beginning with small-scale projects and starting from the bottom up.
Muslim communities and societies need to have economic policies that would meet the basic needs of the people, change consumer tastes and levels so that people can live within their means especially considering the saying of the Prophet that “the little but sufficient is better than the abundant but alluring”. Muslim communities need to be wary of the debt trap through which the energies and resources of a people are mortgaged to international banking institutions. The level of debt from loans and interest remains one of the major sources of impoverishment of many societies.

Educational Institutions
Education institutions in many existing Muslim communities often produce timid and imitative people who are not able to contribute to the welfare and strength of society.
Muslims of today need educational institutions that would produce courageous, enterprising, and creative men and women who aim at ihsaan or excellence in all things, and who are able to contribute to the welfare and strength of society. Muslim communities need an education and an outlook that will not make them accept humiliation and oppression. This was the type of education and training that the Sahabah (companions of the Prophet) received in the “continuous education school” of the noble Prophet. The focus of this education was not fine buildings and expensive equipment but the human mind, heart and body.

Collective Obligations
While the individual Muslim has the duty to acquire such knowledge as to enable him or her to perform personal obligations such as knowledge of Salaat (prayer) and the rules of fasting, the community has the collective obligation to ensure that it has the knowledge and skills to meet its essential needs and supplies.
The Islamic community needs for example to promote the industry of certain individuals in faring, weaving and building for people cannot go without food to eat, clothes to wear and dwellings to live in. It is amazing how this simple rule is neglected by many societies who have abandoned agriculture for large-scale industrial development. This has resulted in dependency on outside sources for food. In crisis situations, this has led to starvation, suffering and death and the ransoming of large populations to outside forces.
The study of the Shari’ah is a collective duty, and each community needs to train and equip itself to defend itself against aggression and to protect the freedom of mankind.
The concept of fard kifayah (collective duty) thus imposes on the community the need to assess its essential needs, plan for the fulfillment of these needs through training of individuals and the allocation of resources to encourage agriculture, industries and institutions to cater for these needs.
These are some of the aspects of community formation and concerns in an Islamic system. It would be seen that the Islamic system does not encourage selfish and destructive individualism. Neither does it stand for rigid collectivization and control from above. It is a society of the middle way where individual freedoms are enjoyed within a guided and disciplined, caring and creative society.