ON THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE

MEANING OF ZAK�T IN EARLY ISLAM

BY

SULIMAN BASHEAR

Introduction

HE INFORMATION provided by Muslim sources on zakatlsadaqa

T(poor-tax/rate, almsgiving), which eventually emerged as one
of the "pillars" (arkan) of classical Islam, has been outlined by
modern scholars. While the voluntary vs. obligatory nature of
zakdtlsadaqa and their interchangeable occurrence in these sources
were considered, it has also been noted that, in the time of the
Prophet, these were still vague regulations and did not represent
taxes demanded by religion. Widely circulated reports concerning
the refusal of certain Bedouin tribes to pay zakat after the Prophet's s
death as they considered their agreements with him cancelled by
that, as well as 'Umar's inclination to agree with this, and the fact
that only Abu Bakr made it a permanent institution, were brought
in support of such an assessment. I
The basic difference between sadaqa, which was primarily applied
to the supererogatory, and the obligatory nature of zakdt, has also
been noted.2 And the eventual emergence of alms as an obligatory
duty in Islam led one scholar, H. Grimme, to the suggestion that
Muhammad "should be treated as a social rather than a religious
reformer.' R. Bell, in turn, gave weight to the fact that the order
to pay zakat occurs in "Meccan passages" of the and noted
that such occurrence comes "only in the sense of alms and volun-
tary giving to the poor, as much for the purification of the giver's

1 Schacht, s.v. "Zak�t" in

J. Encyclopaediaof Islam, first edition, IV, 1202-4;
H.A.R. Gibb and J. Kramers, eds., ShorterEncyclopaedia of Islam,Leiden 1974, pp.
654-5, and the sources cited therein.
2 E. Lane,
Arabic-EnglishLexicon,repr. Beirut 1980, IV, p. 1668.
3 H. Grimme, Mohammed,Münster 1892,
quoted by Tor Andrae, Mohammed,
the Man and His Faith, London 1936, pp. 101-2; and R. Bell, The Origin of Islam
in its Christian Environment,London 1926, p. 79.
 85

soul as for relief of the needy. "4 Concerning the institution of zakat,
which is nowhere regulated, J. Schacht cautiously pointed to the
fact that Muslim sources place it in Medina between the years 2 and
9 A.H., while R. Bell sounds more confident when saying that "its
beginning belongs to the first year or two in Medina and was
motivated by the circumstances of the poorer Muhajirun and
necessities of the state.' `5 5
Scholars also disagreed concerning the similarity between and
possible origins of zakat and sadaqa in parallel institutions and
cognate words from the vocabulary of other religions in the area.
R. Bell held that "the word zakat is Syriac and therefore Chris-
tian", but J. Schacht and others expressed the view that it was bor-
rowed from Jewish usage of Hebrew-Aramaic zdkzit. 6 And the same
was held concerning sadaaa as a transliteration of the Hebrew sedaka
which originally meant "honesty". We are also told that, as
applied by the Pharisees for what they considered the chief duty of
the pious Israelites, namely almsgiving, the proper sense of this
word, which is voluntary or spontaneous "charity", was still
retained at the time of the coming of Islam and elsewhere.' One
scholar, H.P. Smith, held that Muslim tazkiya in the sense of
purification of property corresponds to a similar notion expressed
in Deuteronomy 14:28, though, later, zakdt emerged as a regular tax
of the Muslim State.8 C.C. Torrey, in turn, expressed the view that
zakat and sadaqa are loan words from the North Semitic languages,
corresponding in particular to Aramaic zakut and sidakta and
Hebrew sidaka, respectively. The Aramaic words, he held,
originally meant "purity" and were used by both Jews and Chris-
tians in the sense of "virtuous conduct". To this he added the view
that "the latter term (?idakta) was widely used in Aramaic speech
to mean alms. "9 9

4 R. Bell, Introductionto the

Qur¸�n,Edinburgh 1953, p. 166. Cf. also M.
Hudgson, The Ventureof Islam, Chicago 1974, p. 181.
5 J. Schacht, p. 1203; R. Bell, ibid.
6 J. Schacht, p. 1202; H.A.R. Gibb and J.H. Kramers, p. 654. Compare, how-
ever, with A. Jeffery, Foreign Vocabularyof the Qur¸�n,Baroda 1938, p. 153, where
it is stated that neither of the Aramaic or Syriac cognates seem to have ever meant
alms, though this meaning could easily be derived from them.
7 H.A.R. Gibb and J.H. Kramers, ibid.
8 H.P. Smith, The Bible and Islam, N.Y. 1897, p. 313.
9 C.C. Torrey,
The Jewish Foundationof Islam, N.Y. 1933, p. 141.