Zakāt in Imāmi Shī'ī jurisprudence, from the tenth to the sixteenth century A.D.

Abstract

Māwardī said of zakāt that it was paid ṭahratan li-ahlihā ma'ūnatan li-ahl al-sahman, as a purification for the donor and a support for the recipient. It has thus a dual aspect. As a social tax it provides for the transfer of wealth from certain productive classes of society to certain poor or non-productīve classes. As a religious duty it is of essentially the same type as ṣalāt, ḥajj, etc., afarīḓa 'ala l-'ayn. Like these it is a ritual whose correct performance involves an attention to precise details of quantity (naṣāb), timing (al-ḥawl), and intention (niyya) which may be irrelevant or even inimical to the optimum fulfilment of the social aim.