An Overview of Zakat

The Arabic root word of zakat is zaka which means “purification”, “increase,” “growth”, “blessings”, and “betterment”. Linguistically zakat is defined as purity and increment, meaning that zakat purifies and increases the wealth as it cleanses its owner from any selfishness and greed for wealth and it purifies its recipients’ hearts from any envy and jealousy.

Zakat it is an obligation imposed by Allah (SWT) on Muslims’ wealth justifying the right of the poor over the wealth of the rich for a healthy Muslim society. Moreover, zakat is the third pillars of Islam; hence, it is obligatory upon all Muslims to give part of their wealth to its specified recipients. Since zakat is the third pillar of Islam, it is obligatory on Muslims to give zakat to its recipients to enhance their conditions from being recipients to being givers and this is where a just redistribution of wealth will be realized and poverty will be eradicated.

Therefore, we can say that the institution of zakat is a national and an in-house financial scheme to lift up the spirit of human beings beyond the love of material achievement in a nice and brotherhood attitude to achieve equitable distribution of wealth.