From “is this zakatable?” to “what is needed?”

Most of us know zakat as a pillar of our faith: 2.5% of surplus wealth, given each year to those in need. Reduce it to “charity”, though, and you do it an injustice.

Like every pillar of Islam, zakat has conditions and rules on how it is calculated, collected, used and distributed. It was never only about moving wealth from the rich to the poor. It was an instrument to build, preserve and grow communities, raising people up so that they became contributors in their own right rather than dependants waiting on the next handout.

This summer Foundations of Legacy convened the first Zakat Symposium, an international gathering of scholars examining one weighty question: can zakat be deployed for advocacy, particularly for Muslim minorities living in the West?

Alongside Augustus Della-Porta, Umer Suleman, Jahangir Mohammed and others, I was asked to bring the practitioner's view: how zakat is actually collected and used today, and where other needs of the community are critically underfunded. The question we put to the scholars was whether these non-traditional causes should be funded through zakat, or whether we should find and encourage other sources of funding altogether.

Three reflections

First, the depth of the debate across every school of thought was a reminder of the wisdom in this subject. Islam gives us many ways to give, and we do: British Muslims give an estimated £2.2 billion a year. But the subject was zakat, an act of worship, and any change to how it works is serious business.

Second, the scholars genuinely wanted to hear from practitioners about the newer fronts where change now has to be won: advocacy, think tanks, legal representation, and the many areas the sector has barely begun to resource.

Third, whatever we decide about tomorrow, there is work to do today on the accountability and transparency of how zakat is already handled. The sector needs better standards of practice regardless of the ruling.

The question has to change

Whichever way the ruling falls, one thing is clear to me. We cannot keep giving the way we give now to problems that demand far more complicated solutions. The first question we ask when we give has to change, from “is this zakatable?” to “what is needed?”

That second question is where our work begins. We help funders manage and deploy their capital, zakat or otherwise, so that it strengthens institutions for the long term rather than funding the next campaign. It was not how previous generations gave, and we cannot expect to build what they built by giving any other way.