The Purification of Wealth

The next pillar is zakāt. The word zakāt comes from a root word which means to purify, and the idea is that it is a purification of one's wealth. Everybody, in accruing wealth, will have some aspects to the accruement of wealth that are either clearly doubtful or even really doubtful. So the idea is that zakāt is a way of purifying one's wealth. And the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) prohibited the taking of zakāt for his own family: they cannot be recipients of zakāt, the Banū Hāshim. The reason is that he said that zakāt is like the faeces of wealth. In other words, the body needs to let go of its impurities in order to maintain its purity, and zakāt is seen as a letting go of one's wealth in order to purify it and to make the wealth that one has grow, literally.

For the recipient who receives the wealth it is different. For the person giving, it is a purification; for the one receiving the wealth, it is a right. It is seen as a right, and so it changes perspective. There is a shift in perspective: in other words, the one receiving it is not receiving anything filthy. It is a right. And it is encouraged, when one gives zakāt to somebody, not to tell them it is zakāt — to give it as a gift — so that they do not feel it, because some people have a pride; they do not want to feel that they are in a welfare type of state, that they are in need. So it is encouraged: one does not have to tell them it is zakāt. It is also encouraged to give it smiling, seeing that it is an honour. So the person giving it — these are in the books of fiqh related to giving zakāt — is supposed to give it in humility, not in arrogance, giving it to the person literally feeling honoured to be doing that thing. And the Prophet (peace be upon him) said that one of the signs of the end of time is that people will consider zakāt like a fine — in other words, they would not see it as an honour but rather as something like taxes nowadays, which have to be paid. Zakāt has very often been given to people who had no idea that it was zakāt. Absolutely: many, many times.

An example of how that happens: many would be really surprised at the generosity of practising Muslims towards other Muslims. They are very generous within a community. There is the account of a community in which a man recently lost his job; when it became known that he was in a hard condition, a few people were contacted, and in one day four thousand dollars was raised and given to that person, just to help him for the next couple of months until he could get a job again. And that was given to that person. He was not told it was zakāt; he was told: this is a gift. Now, there were people who gave it as zakāt, but he did not have to be told that it was zakāt. It is true that one may find a rack of lamb at the door, or an envelope of money, and not know from whom it came. That is very common in the Muslim community.