What is zakat and who has to pay it?

The obligatory annual charity, usually 2.5% of savings, due from a Muslim whose wealth stays above a minimum threshold (nisab) for a lunar year.

Zakat is the obligatory charity and the third pillar of Islam. A Muslim whose wealth stays at or above a minimum threshold, the nisab, for a full lunar year pays 2.5% of it, usually once a year. It goes to the categories of people the Quran specifies, first among them the poor and the needy.

Who has to pay

• A Muslim who owns zakatable wealth at or above the nisab.
• Held for a full lunar year (hawl).
• The Prophet set the threshold: "No zakat is due on property amounting to less than five uqiyas of silver" (Sahih al-Bukhari 1405), that is 200 dirhams. Today this is usually given as the value of 595 grams of silver or 85 grams of gold.

What it is paid on

• Cash and savings, gold and silver, and business stock: 2.5%.
• Crops and livestock have their own rates and thresholds.
• Personal-use items such as your home, car and clothes are not counted.

Who receives it

The Quran names eight categories: "the poor, the needy, those who administer them, those whose hearts are to be brought close, freeing people from bondage, those in debt, Allah's cause, and the stranded traveler" (Quran 9:60).

Zakat is described as purification, not only a payment: "Take charity from their wealth to cleanse them and purify them through it" (Quran 9:103). When the Prophet sent Mu'adh to Yemen, he told him to teach that it is "to be taken from the wealthy among them and given to the poor" (Sahih al-Bukhari 1395).