There are about 800 billionaires in the world; however, only 11 of them have donated amounts that exceed one billion dollars to charities. There are also 3 other rich contributors, but whose donations have effectively led them to be cast out of the billionaires list. Meanwhile, Forbes magazine mentions that although 45 percent of all billionaires are American, ten of the 14 billion-dollar donors mentioned above were American. One may wonder: where are the Arab billionaires in this list? It seems that there are none, although the list of the richest people around the world includes many Arabs. Moreover, of the top 250 names, Carlos Slim Helou was the third with his wealth being estimated at 35 billion dollars; nonetheless, I don't consider him to be Arab, when he is rather Mexican. I found 14 Arab names meanwhile, with seven from Saudi Arabia, three from the United Arab Emirates, two from Egypt, one from Kuwait and one registered in Switzerland. Frankly, I do not believe that the lists of the wealthiest people that is published by both Forbes and Fortune and other economic magazines are comprehensive, since while these magazines have accurate information about the wealthy and the rich in the countries where they are published, their information about the billionaires and millionaires in our countries for instance, are limited. Also, while they are knowledgeable in the affairs of corporations and their owners, the other sources of wealth are absent from their calculations. It has been quite a long time since a poet praised someone amongst us for being generous to the extent of self-sacrifice, and gone are Hatim al-Tai and Haram bin Sinan, who was praised by the poet Zuhair bin Abi Salma, which is probably what set Sinan's name as synonymous to generosity. Today, there are some rich people who, as soon as one Dinar (or one Dirham, Riyal or Pound) enters their pockets, it vanishes to probably never be seen again. Meanwhile, the average Arab can be described by what used to be meant about the poor in other countries: If an Arab eats a chicken, then either the Arab is sick, or the chicken is sick. Also, it should be mentioned that the Jews are in fact more generous than we are, as we accuse the Jews of being stingy and of usury and all other vices without looking at ourselves in the mirror. Meanwhile, everyone has heard about the bankruptcy of the fraudster Bernard Madoff, a Jewish American businessman who squandered 60 billion dollars of investors' money through his financial company. While I followed the news about this issue for its inherent importance, I also followed it from another different angle: while the bankruptcy of Madoff hurt many Jews investing in his company, reading the list of his victims also shows a large number of affected Jewish charities. In fact, I read about the bankruptcy of two charities that donate to the Jews in America and Israel, while another non profit group is now on the brink of bankruptcy. I also read that Yeshiva University, where Madoff served as treasurer of the board of trustees and board chairman of the university, has lost at least $100 million. Another Jewish charity active in Los Angeles also lost money with Madoff, along with the American Jewish Congress, the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Steven Spielberg's Wunderkinder Foundation, Elie Wiesel's Foundation for Humanity and Carl Shapiro's charitable foundation. I personally know many wealthy Arabs who donate millions to charity, some publicly and some in secret. I will not mention any names here because there are many others whom I do not know, and so would be unfair to by omitting their names. But for instance, I know a Lebanese rich man who pays for thousands of students to pursue their education, and I know a Saudi who pays monthly salaries to hundreds of people in need. I also know a Kuwaiti whose charity is done 90 percent outside of his own country, while I know an Egyptian who spends millions of pounds every year to help the poor in his country. Yet, I know of no Arab billionaires who donate billions, as we have seen in Forbes's list, while there are none among the Arab millionaires who donate money to their own people like the Jews do, and as we have seen from the list of those affected by the Madoff scandal. The world's richest man, Bill Gates, has so far donated 28 billion dollars to a charity that bears his name and the name of his wife Melinda and which is aimed at combating poverty and disease in the developing countries. Next on the list is Warren Buffet, who announced that he will donate 30 billion dollars over 20 years, in addition to the 6.8 billion dollars he has donated so far. While I am certain that there are Arabs as rich as Gates and Buffet, even though they did not appear on the Forbes and Fortune lists, I know that none of them donates billions, while those who inherited their fortunes among Arabs and those who are self-made are equally stingy in this regard. This is because the self-made Arab may become so rich that he would never be able to go away with all his money unless he burnt it. However, he would rather burn it than spend it, and even sleep on it and then claims (like the old crone from the Rahbani plays): O Sorrow, I don't have any money. Of course, the rich are not described as being stingy, rather they are called thrifty, and if no one will ever love them while they are alive, then their inheritors will. A poet once said in this vein that he sees money in the hands of men to be plenty, only if they are generous, but then he sees that such men are scarce. I am not asking the rich and wealthy to give up their entire fortunes or even half of that, but just to do what the Qur'an wisely put in these words: “And let not thy hand be chained to thy neck nor open it with a complete opening [...] (17:29) * Al-Hayat 5/10/2009
