Zakat in the Quran and Hadith

Why read the sources?

Most people know zakat is 2.5%. Fewer people know where that number comes from, or what the Quran actually says about giving. This guide puts the verses and hadith in one place, in plain English, with the source for each one, so you can read the evidence yourself instead of taking someone's word for it.

Here is the shape of it. The Quran gives the command, the categories, and the warning. The hadith give the numbers: the nisab weights, the 2.5% rate, and the rule of one full year. You need both. This guide keeps them in that order.

The Quran on zakat

The first thing you notice is how often zakat stands next to prayer. The two are paired in dozens of verses. That pairing is the point. Zakat is worship, not a donation drive.

Paired with prayer

Prayer is the worship of the body. Zakat is the worship of wealth. The Quran ties them together from the very first chapters, and it keeps doing it all the way through. When a duty is paired with prayer that many times, it is not optional and it is not small.

Why zakat exists

The word used here is sadaqah, which is the same word the Quran uses for zakat in several places. And look at the reason given. Zakat purifies. It purifies the wealth, because a fixed share of it belongs to others. And it purifies the person giving it, because giving breaks the hold money has on the heart. That is the whole idea of zakat in one verse. It is not a tax. It is purification.

This verse is also why zakat is collected, not just volunteered. "Take from their wealth" is a command to the one in charge, not a suggestion to the wealthy.

Who receives it

This is the verse that decides who can receive zakat. Eight categories, named one by one. In practice, most zakat in Pakistan goes to the first two, the poor and the needy, and to people in debt who cannot repay. But the list is wider than that, and it is fixed. Zakat cannot be given to just any good cause. It goes to the people named here.

Two limits follow from this verse. Zakat does not go to your parents, your children, or your spouse, because looking after them is already your duty. And it does not go to building funds or running costs, because the verse names people, not projects. Scholars differ on some details of this, so check with one if your case is unusual.

The warning against hoarding

This is the warning. The crime here is not owning gold and silver. It is hoarding them, keeping wealth locked away while its due is unpaid. Ibn Umar, one of the companions, explained that the hoarding condemned in this verse is wealth on which zakat has not been paid. Once you pay the zakat, the wealth is no longer hoarded wealth. That is the line the verse draws.

The debtor

This verse sits in the middle of the Quran's longest passage about money, and it speaks to lenders. If someone owes you and cannot pay, give them time. Better still, forgive the debt and count it as charity. Two things follow for zakat. First, a debtor is one of the eight categories in 9:60, so zakat can be used to free a person from debt. Second, money you have lent is still your wealth for zakat purposes, and the schools have detailed rulings on when you pay on it. See our zakat on lent money calculator.

A right, not a favour

Read that again. A known right. Not a favour, not generosity, not kindness. A right. The poor have a fixed share in the wealth of the rich, and zakat is how that share reaches them. This is the verse to remember when zakat starts feeling like a loss. It was never fully yours to begin with.

The hadith on zakat

The Quran gives the command. The hadith give the numbers. Every figure in the calculators on this site traces back to one of the hadith below.

Zakat is a pillar

Zakat stands in the same list as prayer and fasting. That is its rank. A person who denies that it is due has left the fold of the pillars, and a person who accepts it but neglects it has left a pillar unbuilt. The scholars are unanimous on this.

Taken from the rich, given to the poor

The Prophet said this to Muadh ibn Jabal when he sent him to Yemen. It is the clearest statement of how zakat works in practice. It is taken from the rich of a place and given to the poor of the same place. That is why scholars say zakat should be spent locally first, and sent elsewhere only when the local need is met.

The nisab hadith

Five awaq of silver is two hundred dirhams. That is the silver nisab, and it is the source of the 612.36 gram figure used on this site. Five awsuq is the crop nisab, about 653 kilograms, which is why the ushar calculator uses that number. Below these amounts, no zakat is due at all. The threshold is there to protect people who have little.

The gold threshold and the rate

This one hadith gives you four things at once. The silver nisab, two hundred dirhams. The gold nisab, twenty dinars. The rate, five out of two hundred and half a dinar out of twenty, which is 2.5% in both cases. And the year, because the hadith says "a year passes over them" twice. Abu Bakr's written zakat instructions, which he said came from the Prophet, set the same rate: one fortieth of silver once it reaches two hundred dirhams (Sahih al-Bukhari 1454).

The warning

After saying this, the Prophet recited the verse: "Let not those who withhold think it is better for them. It is worse for them. What they withheld will be tied around their necks on the Day of Resurrection." (Quran 3:180) The hadith and the verse belong together. The wealth a person refused to purify becomes the punishment itself.

From the hadith to today's numbers

The hadith fix the nisab in coins: twenty dinars of gold, two hundred dirhams of silver, five wasq of grain. Coins are weighed differently by different scholars, so the gram figures differ slightly. Both figures you will see come from the same hadith.

The site uses the tola figures because they are the standard in Pakistan and India, where most of our readers live. The weights never change. What changes is the price of gold and silver, so the cash value of nisab moves every day. Check the live figure on our Nisab Today page before you calculate.

What to do with all this

The sources point to four steps. Work out your zakatable wealth. Check it against the live nisab. Check that a full lunar year has passed. Then give 2.5% to one of the eight categories, starting with the poor near you. The guides and calculators on this site walk through each step.

Verse renderings follow the Sahih International translation. Hadith references use the standard numbering on sunnah.com. If you spot a mistake in a reference, please tell us through the contact page so we can fix it.