Re: Welfare in Islam...
zakat (taken from muslim citizens) and jizya (collected from non-muslim citizens) are the taxes that the citizens of a muslim state have to pay....
the government does provide for the necessities, ofcourse depending on its resources....
Ameer-ul-momineen, Umar Faroqq (ra) once saw an old jew working and asked him why he works in such an old age....
he said he has to work to be able to give the jizya, which made Umar (ra) realize that they have taken tax from these men when they were young and now that they r old, the government shud help them....
hence old men were relieved from the tax payment and instead provided with pensions....
during the rule of Khalifa Umar bin Abdul Aziz (ra), the bait-ul-maal was used to provide housing for all needy people, and arranging marriages for all those who wished to get married, making roads etc....
he started off his rule at a state when the bait-ul-maal had to take loan from citizens to provide the basic needs (military, police etc), but the "welfare state" so flourished that during the later periods of his rule, the bait-ul-maal wud be overflowing and the government cud not find any means of spending them....