Zakat — The Third Pillar

🕌 One of the five

Zakat is the third pillar of Islam, named in the foundational hadith of the religion immediately after the testimony of faith and the prayer:

When the Prophet ﷺ sent Muʿādh ibn Jabal to Yemen, he set out the order of daʿwah — tawḥīd first, then prayer, then zakat — and in one sentence gave both the obligation and its direction of flow:

Allah tied zakat to the very purification of the community the Prophet ﷺ led: "Of their goods, take alms, that so thou mightest purify and sanctify them; and pray on their behalf" (Sūrat at-Tawbah 9:103). Note the verb — take. Zakat is collected as a due, not waited on as a favour.

Refs: Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 8 · Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1496 · Sūrat at-Tawbah 9:103 · see also The Five Pillars.

⚖️ How seriously the companions took it

After the Prophet's ﷺ death, some tribes offered to keep the prayer but withhold the zakat. Abū Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) refused to split what revelation had joined:

And the warning for the one who withholds it is among the most vivid in the Sunnah:

The Prophet ﷺ then recited the verse this hadith explains: "And let not those who covetously withhold of the gifts which Allah Hath given them of His Grace, think that it is good for them: Nay, it will be the worse for them: soon shall the things which they covetously withheld be tied to their necks Like a twisted collar, on the Day of Judgment" (Sūrat Āl ʿImrān 3:180). Allah also warns those "who bury gold and silver and spend it not in the way of Allah" of a grievous penalty, their hoards heated in the Fire and their foreheads, flanks and backs branded with them (Sūrat at-Tawbah 9:34–35). The scholars explain that any wealth whose zakat is paid is not the buried "kanz" of these texts; the threat is for what is withheld. On the fiqh consequences of refusal, see the answer Ruling on refusing to pay zakat.

Refs: Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1399 · Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1403 · Sūrat Āl ʿImrān 3:180 · Sūrat at-Tawbah 9:34–35.

📋 Four conditions

Zakat (of wealth) becomes due when all of these are met:

1. Islam. Zakat is an act of worship, and worship is accepted from a Muslim. It was legislated upon the believers — "Allah has made it obligatory on them" in the hadith of Muʿādh (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1496).
2. Full ownership. The wealth is yours, in your possession or under your control — not, for example, a loan you have despaired of recovering. (On loans owed to you, see Zakat on debts owed to you.)
3. The niṣāb. The wealth reaches the minimum threshold set by the Prophet ﷺ — detailed in the next section. Below the niṣāb, nothing is due at all.
4. The ḥawl. One full lunar year passes over the wealth while it remains at or above the niṣāb. The Prophet ﷺ said: "Whoever acquired wealth, then there is no Zakat on it until the Hawl has passed (while it is in his possession)" — Jāmiʿ at-Tirmidhī 631, graded ṣaḥīḥ in the site's hadith repository; and ʿĀʾishah reported: "There is not Zakat on wealth until Hawl (one year) has passed" — Sunan Ibn Mājah 1792, graded ṣaḥīḥ in the site's hadith repository. The ḥawl condition applies to money, gold, silver, trade goods and livestock; crops are the exception — their zakat is due on the day of harvest, with no ḥawl (Sūrat al-Baqarah 2:267 commands giving "of the fruits of the earth which We have produced for you").

Refs: Jāmiʿ at-Tirmidhī 631 & Sunan Ibn Mājah 1792 — both graded ṣaḥīḥ in the site's hadith repository · Does wealth need a full year (ḥawl)? · Lunar or solar year?

🧒 The age question — is zakat due on a child's wealth?

Here sound scholarship genuinely differs, and the difference turns on what zakat attaches to.

The majority — the Mālikī, Shāfiʿī and Ḥanbalī schools — hold that zakat is a right owed in the wealth itself, not a duty conditioned on the owner's legal responsibility (taklīf). So if an orphan, a minor, or an insane person owns wealth above the niṣāb, the guardian pays its zakat from it each year. Their evidence: the texts hang the obligation on the property — "Zakat is the compulsory right to be taken from the property" (Abū Bakr's words, Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1399), and the hadith of Muʿādh makes it "obligatory on them to pay the Zakat" from "the rich among them" without excluding the young rich. This was also the practice reported from companions including ʿUmar and ʿĀʾishah, who paid or ordered zakat from orphans' wealth in their care.

The Ḥanafī school holds that zakat, being worship, requires taklīf like prayer and fasting — so no zakat on the wealth of a minor or the insane (apart from crops and zakat al-fitr), until maturity.

The weightier position, and the one the practice of the salaf supports, is the majority's: the wealth itself is what is purified, and the poor's right in it does not lapse because its owner is young. A guardian holding an orphan's money should pay its zakat annually — and the early scholars even encouraged trading with orphans' wealth so that zakat would not consume it. See the fuller answer: Zakat on the wealth of a child or insane person and At what age is zakat farḍ?.

Refs: Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1399 · Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1496.

💰 Gold, silver and cash

The Prophet ﷺ fixed the minimums himself:

And in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī: "No Zakat is due on property mounting to less than five Uqiyas (of silver), and no Zakat is due on less than five camels, and there is no Zakat on less than five Wasqs" (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1405) — five ūqiyahs being the same two hundred dirhams. Abū Bakr's written zakat regulations, preserved in Bukhārī, state the rate: "For silver the Zakat is one-fortieth of the lot (i.e. 2.5%)" (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1454).

Paper money did not exist in the prophetic era; it stands in the place of gold and silver and takes their ruling. Your cash, savings and trade goods are added together and measured against the niṣāb. Because the silver niṣāb is worth far less today than the gold one, many scholars advise the cautious and poor-friendly course of using the silver niṣāb for cash — more people pay, and more poor benefit — while others value cash against gold as the more stable measure; both are positions of qualified scholarship. Whichever is used, the rate is the same fortieth. Work your own figure with the Zakat Calculator, and see What is the niṣāb? and How do you calculate zakat?.

Refs: Sunan Abī Dāwūd 1573 (ṣaḥīḥ, site repository) · Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1405 · Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1454.

🗂️ The categories, in summary

• Cash, savings and money owed to you that you expect to recover — 2.5% once above the niṣāb with a ḥawl. See Zakat on cash savings and Zakat on monthly salary.
• Gold and silver — including, on the sounder view, jewellery that is worn; the full evidence and the range of opinion are set out on the dedicated page Zakat on Gold.
• Business inventory (trade goods). Stock bought for resale is valued at market price on the zakat date and 2.5% is paid on it together with business cash. Shop fittings, tools and vehicles used in the work are not stock and carry no zakat. See Zakat on business inventory and Zakat on stocks and investments.
• Crops and fruits. Due on harvest day, not after a ḥawl, and only above five wasqs (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1405). The rate follows the irrigation: "On a land irrigated by rain water or by natural water channels or if the land is wet due to a near by water channel Ushr (i.e. one-tenth) is compulsory (as Zakat); and on the land irrigated by the well, half of an Ushr (i.e. one-twentieth) is compulsory" — Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1483. See Zakat on agricultural produce.
• Grazing livestock — camels from five, sheep and goats from forty, cattle by analogy from thirty — on the detailed schedules Abū Bakr recorded from the Prophet's ﷺ instructions (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1454): for example "for every five camels one sheep is to be paid," and for sheep "if they are between forty and one-hundred-and-twenty sheep, one sheep is to be paid." See Zakat on livestock.
• Not zakatable: the home you live in, the car you drive, furniture, clothes, tools of your trade — personal-use property carries no zakat, however valuable. See Zakat on house, car and personal belongings and, for property let out, Zakat on rental property (zakat falls on the saved rent, not the building).

Refs: Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1405 · Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1483 · Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1454.

🎯 The verse that closes the question

Who may receive zakat is not left to human judgement. Allah named the categories and sealed them with His knowledge and wisdom:

1. Al-fuqarāʾ — the poor. Those who have little or nothing of what they need. They head the list, and the hadith of Muʿādh names them as zakat's destination: "taken from the rich among them and given to the poor among them" (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1496).
2. Al-masākīn — the needy. Those who have something, but not enough to suffice them. The two categories overlap in practice; together they are zakat's chief purpose.
3. Those employed to administer it — the collectors and distributors appointed to manage the zakat, who may be paid from it for their work even if personally wealthy, because this is a wage, not a hand-out.
4. Those whose hearts are to be reconciled — new Muslims whose faith is being strengthened, or those near to Islam whose hearts an authority judges may be won or whose harm restrained. See Zakat to a non-Muslim for reconciling hearts?.
5. Those in bondage — freeing slaves and, by extension in scholars' application, ransoming Muslim captives.
6. Those in debt — the one whose legitimate debts exceed what he can pay, or who took on debt to reconcile between people. See Using zakat to pay off debts and the chapter on Debt.
7. In the cause of Allah (fī sabīlillāh) — the salaf and the great majority of scholars understood this as jihad and its provision, not as a catch-all for every good project; stretching it to cover mosques, roads and general works empties the eight categories of their limits. See Can zakat fund a mosque?.
8. The wayfarer — the traveller cut off from his money, helped to reach home even if wealthy back in his own country.

Zakat need not be split across all eight — it is valid to give it all to one category, even one person of a category, according to need (see Must zakat be split among all eight?). It may be given to poor relatives one is not already obliged to maintain — indeed with double reward — but not to one's own parents, children or wife (Giving zakat to family members). And the recipient need not be told the money is zakat (answer here).

Refs: Sūrat at-Tawbah 9:60 · Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1496 · Who is eligible to receive zakat?.

🌙 Amount, who, and when

Distinct from the zakat of wealth is zakat al-fitr (ṣadaqat al-fiṭr), due at the end of Ramadan from every Muslim — no niṣāb, no ḥawl, a head-tax of food:

• Amount: one ṣāʿ — roughly 2.5–3 kg — of the staple food of the land: dates, barley, and in the companions' practice also raisins, cottage cheese, or simply "food" — Abū Saʿīd said: "In the lifetime of the Prophet ﷺ we used to give one Sa' of food or one Sa' of dates or one Sa' of barley" (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1508); later the people reckoned half a ṣāʿ of wheat as equivalent (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1511). The staple food of the land — rice, flour — fulfils it today. Whether cash may substitute for food is a real scholarly difference — the majority hold to food as the Sunnah's letter, the Ḥanafīs allow its value; the safer course is food. See Cash instead of food for zakat al-fitr?.
• Who pays: every Muslim — "male or female, young or old" — the head of the household paying for his dependents, including children. It is due on whoever has food beyond his own need for the day and night of Eid.
• When: its window closes at the Eid prayer: "The Prophet ﷺ ordered the people to pay Zakat-ul-Fitr before going to the ʿId prayer" (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1509). The companions would pay it "a day or two before the ʿId" (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1511) — so paying one or two days early is Sunnah-supported; delaying past the prayer is not.
• To whom: the poor and needy, so that no household lacks food on the day of Eid.

Refs: Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1503 · Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1509 · Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1511 · How much is zakat al-fitr and when is it due? · Ramadan · Eid.

🌱 The spirit of it

Allah says: "That which ye lay out for increase through the property of (other) people, will have no increase with Allah: but that which ye lay out for charity, seeking the Countenance of Allah, (will increase): it is these who will get a recompense multiplied" (Sūrat ar-Rūm 30:39) — riba shrinks before Allah, zakat multiplies. And the Prophet ﷺ said: "If one gives in charity what equals one date-fruit from the honestly earned money and Allah accepts only the honestly earned money — Allah takes it in His right (hand) and then enlarges its reward for that person (who has given it), as anyone of you brings up his baby horse, so much so that it becomes as big as a mountain" (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1410). Zakat purifies the wealth that remains, purifies the heart of the one who gives, and binds the community the way the salaf were bound — the rich carrying a duty, the poor holding a right, and both knowing it came from Allah. Beyond the obligation lies the open door of voluntary sadaqah, and beyond that the earning itself must be clean — see Riba & Halal Earning.

Refs: Sūrat ar-Rūm 30:39 · Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1410.