The rules of zakat al-mal

Zakat is an obligation for a Muslim who owns wealth above the set threshold. The Quran pairs it with prayer in many verses (Quran 2:43) and orders it to be taken from people’s wealth (Quran 9:103). The Prophet ﷺ named it among the five pillars of Islam and described it as a share “taken from their rich and returned to their poor”.

Whoever refuses to pay it out of greed commits a grave sin; whoever denies that it is obligatory while knowing it leaves Islam, by agreement of the scholars.

• Being Muslim and free.
• Full ownership of the wealth: money that is lost, confiscated or lent to someone who does not repay is not counted until it is recovered.
• Reaching the nisab: the value of 85 g of gold or 595 g of silver for money, gold and trade goods; 5 awsuq (612 kg) for crops; 5 camels, 30 cattle or 40 sheep for livestock.
• One Hijri year for money, gold, silver, trade goods and livestock. Crops, found treasure and minerals do not wait for a year.
• Wealth that grows or can grow: nothing on your home, car, furniture, clothes or work tools.

The year starts on the day your wealth reaches the nisab. To avoid tracking every sum, most institutions advise a fixed date every year: on that day you count everything you own and pay 2.5% of the total. This is the Hanafi rule (sums received during the year are added to the capital), followed by the Diyanet and the Kuwait Zakat House; Ibn Baz also advises it, paying the zakat of recent sums in advance.

In the Maliki, Shafi‘i and Hanbali schools, each sum received has, in principle, its own year. If the total falls below the nisab during the year, the year starts again for them; for the Hanafi school only the beginning and the end of the year count.

Those who keep their accounts by the Gregorian year pay 2.577% instead of 2.5%, the solar year being about eleven days longer (Kuwait Zakat House; Egypt’s Dar al-Ifta).

The general rate is 2.5%, one quarter of a tenth, for money, gold, silver, trade goods and investments. Crops have their own rate (10%, 5% or 7.5%), livestock a scale counted in animals, found treasure one fifth.

• Intention: you pay with the intention of zakat, when you give it or when you set the sum aside.
• Without delay: once due, zakat is paid straight away unless there is a valid reason (Maliki, Shafi‘i and Hanbali schools; Ibn ‘Uthaymin).
• In advance: allowed once the nisab is reached, according to the Hanafi, Shafi‘i and Hanbali schools; the Maliki school does not accept it.
• Unpaid years: you pay for every past year (agreement of the four schools).
• Taxes do not replace zakat and are not deducted from it (4th Symposium; Permanent Committee).
• In kind or in money: in principle you give what is due; its value is accepted for a need or a benefit (Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn ‘Uthaymin), and more widely by the Hanafi school.
• Where: the poor of the country where the wealth is have the first right to it; sending it elsewhere is allowed for a need or a benefit (Hanafi and Maliki schools, Ibn Baz).

To know whom to give it to, see who can receive zakat.