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Every able Muslim is obligated to tackle inequality by giving Zakat. Akhuwat can help you do it sustainably.
This Ramadan, power up your Zakat by donating to our Community Support Fund.
Zakat is an obligatory charity in Islam. It enables the distribution of surplus wealth to the needy. At Akhuwat, we believe Zakat has the power to eradicate world poverty if it were applied on a wide enough scale.
The term ‘Zakat’ in Arabic literally means to cleanse. As the third pillar of Islam, Zakat is a form of worship and a way for us to cleanse our wealth.
Paying Zakat is mandatory for all Muslims who have surplus wealth, which they aren’t using for their own basic needs. These surplus savings you have must be above a set minimum amount, called ‘Nisab.’ If it is, and if you’ve held these savings for a year, then you should be paying Zakat. Your Zakat is calculated on 2.5% of your savings, which the poor and needy have a right over.
The value of Nisab is determined through today’s value of gold and silver.
Zakat isn’t payable on personal assets like the home you live in or the car you drive. Neither is it payable on tools of trade, which allow you to earn a living. Assets that Zakat is payable on include:
According to the Islamic rulings, Zakat may only be paid to Muslims. There are eight types of people or causes we can give our Zakat to, namely:
Akhuwat turns your Zakat into Shariah-approved Community Support Fund advances for widows and needy families through our core programme. Our recipient families use the resources from the advances granted to gain a sustainable livelihood or to boost the one they already have. This lifts them out of poverty through their own hard work.
Akhuwat’s support is granted to worthy families strictly without additional charges, so our recipients only pay back the capital amount they’ve borrowed. No one makes a profit off their hard work, but them.
Next year, the widows and families who received your Zakat won’t be reliant on charity anymore. And when they pay us back, we’ll recycle their monthly instalments to help different families with new Community Support Fund advances. In this way, together, we’re helping to break the poverty cycle. The Zakat you give just once will keep on supporting the needy over and over again.
Most people are daunted by the process of calculating Zakat, but it’s actually quite straightforward. It’s even more straightforward with our Zakat Calculator. But if you’d rather do it yourself, here’s a breakdown of how:
First, you need to know the accurate price of gold/silver today to work out the monetary value of Nisab. So, if the Nisab by gold standard is 87.48; and if the price of gold was £30 per gram; then you could work out the value of Nisab as follows: 30 x 87.48 = 2,624.40.
That means that if you have £2,624.40 or more in assets/savings you are eligible to pay Zakat. The amount you’ll have to pay is 2.5% of your total savings (after a year’s worth of living expenses, and provided you’ve had that amount for a full year.)
As per these prices, the Zakat you’d have to pay would be £65.61.
Please note that the calculation above is just an example of how to work out your Zakat, and you shouldn’t take it as an up-to-date representation of current gold prices. If you’re still unsure about how to calculate your Zakat or are worried you might get it wrong, please use our Zakat Calculator.
Akhuwat provides collateral- and interest-free loans to underprivileged families so they can help themselves out of poverty. With one of the highest loan return rates in the world, Akhuwat continues to transform lives one loan at a time. Akhuwat is registered in the UK with the charities commission (registered charity number 1136317)
