Zakah: payment and use of charity

Zakah is required of Muslims who have sufficient wealth. The minimum wealth threshold is called nisab. This means that having some money does not automatically make someone liable to pay: their wealth must meet the threshold, taking account of their family’s basic needs.

The usual payment is 2.5% of qualifying wealth each lunar year. A lunar year follows the cycles of the Moon. Zakah is therefore an annual duty for those who qualify, not a payment expected equally from rich and poor. Its calculation concerns qualifying wealth, rather than simply taking a percentage from every wage payment.

How the payment reaches people

The way Zakah is collected and distributed varies between places. In some Muslim countries, the state collects and administers it. In Britain, Muslims may give their payment through a mosque, which distributes it to eligible people, or through an Islamic charity.

For example, Muslim Aid and Islamic Relief can use Zakah donations to support eligible people affected by emergencies and disasters. Giving through an organisation allows individual payments to be brought together and directed towards people who need help. Distribution can be confidential, so the donor and recipient need not know each other’s identity.

Who may receive Zakah?

Zakah money is not an unrestricted fund for any project a donor considers worthwhile. Qur’an 9:60 identifies the categories for which it may be used:

• the poor;
• the needy;
• those who administer the payments;
• those whose hearts are to be won over;
• freeing enslaved people;
• helping people in debt;
• God’s cause;
• travellers in need.

These categories show that Zakah addresses several kinds of hardship. A traveller, for instance, may need help while away from home even if they normally have enough money. The inclusion of administrators also recognises that collecting and distributing donations requires work.

In practice, support for poor and needy recipients can provide essentials such as food and other necessities. Emergency relief can qualify when it assists eligible recipients: the important connection is between the use of the money and the permitted categories.

Why giving is also worship

Zakah means ‘purification’. Muslims understand giving as a way of purifying their wealth and resisting greed and selfishness. It encourages them to value obedience to Allah more than keeping all their possessions for themselves.

Qur’an 24:56 links paying prescribed alms with prayer and obedience to the Messenger. Zakah is therefore both a religious duty and practical help for others. It can reduce hardship and strengthen the ummah, the worldwide Muslim community, by making care for people in need a shared responsibility.

Qur’an 9:60: the poor, needy, administrators, those whose hearts are to be won over, freeing enslaved people, people in debt, God’s cause and travellers in need.

Muslim Aid and Islamic Relief can distribute Zakah to eligible people affected by emergencies and disasters.

Significance

Obedience to Allah; purification of wealth; resistance to greed; relief of hardship; solidarity within the ummah. Qur’an 24:56 connects prescribed alms with prayer and obedience.