زكاة
Zakāh
Obligatory almsgiving: a fixed share of one’s savings, given to those in need each year.
What it means
The word means “purification” and “growth”: the Quran says that by it believers are purified (9:103). It is one of the five pillars. In general it is 2.5 per cent of savings above a minimum (niṣāb) held for a lunar year. The Quran names eight kinds of recipient, first the poor and the needy (9:60).
Often misunderstood as
That it is a tax to fund war, or that it only helps Muslims.
What the sources say
The first two categories are the poor and the needy. Charity beyond the obligation, ṣadaqa, can go to anyone in need, and the Quran says that what you spend on good is for your own benefit (2:272). Abu Yusuf’s Kitab al-Kharaj reports that Umar ordered a stipend from the public treasury for an elderly Jewish man he saw begging, saying it would be unjust to take tax from him in his youth and abandon him in old age.
Term and Arabic as listed in Ismail al Faruqi, Toward Islamic English (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1995), p. 34, listed as ZAKĀH. The definition is restated here.