Yarrow, there is a MASSIVE amount of writing on this topic—there is quite a lot of agreement but also (like many things in Islam) large points of disagreement.
I think for the purposes of EA/​effective giving, in the simplest form:
Zakat is a wealth-tax levied against Muslims above a certain wealth level and given to a small prescribed group of eligible recipients. Strictly, zakat has to be in the form of the transfer of ownership of cash or commodities.
In the theology there are 8 permissible groups, only one of which I think we’d be able to target for EA purposes—the (Muslim) poor and needy. So any program we’d try and get to be zakat-certified would be checked that the recipients are muslim and are poor and a couple of other things. They’d also want to make sure that the funds are disbursed within one lunar year of collection.
Zakat has to be held in a non-interest-barring account, and shouldn’t be intermingled with non-Zakat funds. Zakat also can’t be used to cover transaction or operational fees.
Let me know if you have any other more specific points of enquiry?
What are the criteria for zakat compliance?
Some previous discussion here.
Yarrow, there is a MASSIVE amount of writing on this topic—there is quite a lot of agreement but also (like many things in Islam) large points of disagreement.
I think for the purposes of EA/​effective giving, in the simplest form:
Zakat is a wealth-tax levied against Muslims above a certain wealth level and given to a small prescribed group of eligible recipients. Strictly, zakat has to be in the form of the transfer of ownership of cash or commodities.
In the theology there are 8 permissible groups, only one of which I think we’d be able to target for EA purposes—the (Muslim) poor and needy. So any program we’d try and get to be zakat-certified would be checked that the recipients are muslim and are poor and a couple of other things. They’d also want to make sure that the funds are disbursed within one lunar year of collection.
Zakat has to be held in a non-interest-barring account, and shouldn’t be intermingled with non-Zakat funds. Zakat also can’t be used to cover transaction or operational fees.
Let me know if you have any other more specific points of enquiry?