Zakat

Zakat is the obligatory annual charity due from Muslims whose wealth has met a minimum threshold and been held for a lunar year. It is the third pillar of Islam, and it is a right owed to specific people rather than a donation.

This page explains what the ZohaNur calculator does. It is not a fatwa, and for anything unusual you should ask a scholar.

The two conditions#

Nisab. Your zakatable wealth must reach a threshold, set historically at 87.48g of gold or 612.36g of silver. The silver standard produces a lower threshold and so obliges more people; many scholars recommend it for that reason. The calculator lets you choose.

Hawl. That wealth must have been held for one full lunar year — about 354 days, shorter than a solar year, which is why the due date moves earlier each year.

If both are met, the rate is 2.5% of the qualifying wealth.

What counts#

Broadly: cash on hand and in accounts, gold and silver, money owed to you that you expect to recover, business stock, and investments held for trading.

Broadly not: your home, your car, personal belongings, and the tools of your trade.

Debts you owe are generally deducted. How much of a long-term debt may be deducted is a matter scholars differ on, and the calculator uses a common approach rather than the only approach.

Where the calculator stops#

The calculator applies standard rules to figures you type in. It cannot assess:

• Business assets with complicated valuation.
• Pensions, provident funds and long-term locked instruments.
• Agricultural produce and livestock, which follow entirely different rules.
• Property held with mixed intention.
• Debt structures that are disputed among scholars.

For any of these, use the calculator to organise your figures and then take them to someone qualified.

Where it should go#

The eight categories of recipient are named in Surah at-Tawbah 9:60: the poor, the destitute, those employed to collect it, those whose hearts are to be reconciled, freeing those in bondage, those in debt, in the path of Allah, and the traveller.

ZohaNur is not one of them, and does not accept zakat. Why we say so explicitly →

Nothing you enter in the calculator leaves your phone.