Zakat, sawm, and hajj: the essentials
Islamic Studies · a self-paced course lesson
Zakat is arithmetic, deliberately: 2.5% of qualifying wealth — cash, gold, silver, trade goods — held above the nisab for one full lunar year. The nisab is the value of 85 grams of gold or 595 grams of silver (many scholars favour the lower, silver-based threshold so more wealth purifies). Quran 9:60 then names exactly eight categories who may receive it, the poor and needy first. Not charity as mood but as system: the giver cannot inflate it away, and the recipient list cannot be lobbied.