Zakat: 2.5% of Every Income, on the Day You Receive It

Zakat is the obligatory charity, the second practice of Submission after the Contact Prayers, and the Quran settles the two questions that matter most about it: when it is due and who receives it. The rate, 2.5% of net income, reached us through Abraham, like the rest of the religion's practices. Put the three together and Zakat is simple: whenever money comes in, 2.5% of it goes out the same day, to the people the Quran names.

When: on the day of harvest

The Quran does not leave the timing to custom. It fixes it in the one verse where Zakat is commanded with a date attached:

[6:141] He is the One who established gardens, trellised and untrellised, and palm trees, and crops with different tastes, and olives, and pomegranate—fruits that are similar, yet dissimilar. Eat from their fruits, and give the due alms on the day of harvest, and do not waste anything. He does not love the wasters.

For a farmer the day of harvest is literal: the crop comes in, and the due alms go out of it before anything else. For everyone else it is the day their harvest arrives, whatever shape it takes:

• A job: every payday. If you are paid monthly, Zakat is due twelve times a year; if weekly, every week.
• A business: whenever the business realises its income — each time a sale is settled, an invoice is paid, a contract pays out, a month's books are closed with a profit.
• Everything else that comes in: rent received, a dividend, interest paid to you, a freelance fee, a bonus, a gift of money. The day it lands is its day of harvest.

The translator's note on 6:141 says it in one line: Zakat must be given away "on the day we receive income." It is a flow, tied to income as it arrives, not a yearly settlement on whatever happens to be left over.

How much: 2.5% of net income

The proportion is not written in the Quran. It is part of Abraham's practice, handed down from generation to generation like the Contact Prayers themselves, and still practiced: the religion God tells us to follow is Abraham's.

[16:123] Then we inspired you (Muhammad) to follow the religion of Abraham, the monotheist; he never was an idol worshiper.

[22:78] … He has chosen you and has placed no hardship on you in practicing your religion—the religion of your father Abraham. He is the one who named you "Submitters" originally. … Therefore, you shall observe the Contact Prayers (Salat) and give the obligatory charity (Zakat), and hold fast to GOD …

That proportion is 2.5% of net income. Net means after the government's taxes have been taken out, and nothing else: not after the mortgage, the rent, the loan payments or the cost of living. Zakat is computed on what you received, not on what you managed to keep.

Three worked examples:

• A salary of 4,000 arrives after tax on the 25th. Zakat is 100, due on the 25th.
• A shop closes its week with 12,000 in sales and 9,000 in costs of goods and running the shop. The harvest is the 3,000 earned; Zakat is 75, due that week.
• A freelancer is paid 1,800 for a finished job. Zakat is 45, due the day the payment clears.

And the Quran names the quality of what is given as well as the amount: it is to come from the good of what you earn, not the leftovers you would not accept yourself (2:267).

To whom, in this order

[2:215] They ask you about giving: say, "The charity you give shall go to the parents, the relatives, the orphans, the poor, and the traveling alien." Any good you do, GOD is fully aware thereof.

The order is part of the instruction. Zakat begins at home, with parents who need it, then relatives, then orphans, then the poor, then the stranded traveller. Only when you know no one in those categories does it go further afield, and then to a charity whose distinct purpose is the poor. Money given to a mosque, a hospital, a school or a general cause may be a fine charity, but it is not Zakat; Zakat has named recipients.

Why it carries such weight

God ties His mercy to it:

[7:156] … He said, "My retribution befalls whomever I will. But My mercy encompasses all things. However, I will specify it for those who (1) lead a righteous life, (2) give the obligatory charity (Zakat), (3) believe in our revelations, and …

The believers are described, again and again, by two habits together: they observe the Contact Prayers and they give the obligatory charity (23:4, 22:78). Zakat purifies the money that remains (9:103), and what is given this way is not lost: "if you give to charity, seeking GOD's pleasure, these are the ones who receive their reward manifold" (30:39). Asked how much to give in charity beyond it, the answer is "The excess" (2:219).

Why most of the world does it differently

Most of the Muslim world gives Zakat once a year, and many never give it at all. The yearly rule does not come from the Quran. It comes from the other sources that were placed beside it: the Hadith, hearsay attributed to the Prophet long after his death, lies his enemies put in his mouth to insult him and to distort the religion. God tells us to follow the Quran alone, as the only source of law:

[6:114] Shall I seek other than GOD as a source of law, when He has revealed to you this book fully detailed? Those who received the scripture recognize that it has been revealed from your Lord, truthfully. You shall not harbor any doubt.

[45:6] These are GOD's revelations that we recite to you truthfully. In which Hadith other than GOD and His revelations do they believe?

The Quran says "on the day of harvest." Those who follow it alone give Zakat as income arrives. Those who follow the hearsay beside it wait a year, and the poor wait with them.

Keeping it, in practice

• Make it part of payday. When the money arrives, move 2.5% of the net amount at once. What is set aside the same day never gets spent by mistake.
• Keep a short list. Who among your parents, relatives and known families needs it, in the Quran's order, so the money has somewhere to go the day it is due.
• Businesses: count it with the books. Whenever income is realised, take 2.5% of what was earned before it is reinvested or drawn.
• No income, no Zakat. Zakat is on what comes in. A month without income carries no Zakat; a month with two paydays carries two.
• Loans and refunds are not income. Money you must return, or money that is your own coming back, has no harvest in it. Money given to you to keep does.
• Let the calculator do the arithmetic. The Zakat calculator in this app takes the net amount received and gives the 2.5% to set aside.

Zakat kept this way is light. It is never a large sum at once, it never has to be reconstructed from a year's accounts, and it never leaves the poor waiting for a season. It is simply the first thing done with every harvest, as the Quran says.