IN most developed countries thousands of universities and colleges can rely for a great part of their funding on donations from businessmen who previously studied there. It's a way of returning the compliment, as it were, and their donations may arrive in the millions and continue for years on end. Our universities and colleges, however, are rarely the recipients of donations from businessmen despite the fact that most of them are former alumni. One day when I suggested to a successful former graduate of King Fahd University in Dhahran that he offer a donation, he quite openly sneered: “Then what's the government for?” I pondered his response a while and found that the word “donate”, whether for charity or educational institutions, seemed to strike a note of fear in most of our businessmen. For let's face it, if some of them don't even contribute the Zakat required of Shariah, then they're highly unlikely to give forth to the universities they studied in, or even a school deserving of their pity. It may be true that ultimately it is the responsibility of the government, but what should stop businessmen giving back to the institutions to which the credit goes for their education and subsequent wealth? I don't wish to be overly-judgmental, but the stark truth is that there are many businessmen who have no sense of national duty. If everything is the responsibility of the government, then surely it is government which paved the way for the success of every one of them, given that it never asked for tax or duties in the first place. Most Western governments are wealthy and charge taxes of over half the earnings of businessmen, yet those businessmen still donate to humanitarian work, sometimes with over two thirds of their earnings, out of a keen sense of national duty and responsibility toward the society that made them successful. There are businessmen amongst us, of course, for whom the word “donate” holds no fear, but their gifts and funding generally go to religious institutions for things like building mosques or sponsoring orphans, through which the donator hopes to receive a divine reward. As fine and praiseworthy as that may be, donations to educational institutions are no less important. We give to the poor and needy, regarding it as an honorable form of donation, but we also forget that support for knowledge is the best thing we can possibly do, as it is knowledge – not money – that fights poverty. As the saying goes: If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.
