As the holy month of Ramadan nears, charity organisations in the country are helping the faithful by introducing an online Zakat calculator to ease the procedures of calculating zakat.
A zakat-calculator is available on the website of Qatar Charity in Arabic and English that enables people to calculate the zakat amount on their savings money, stocks, gold and cattle.
Sheikh Thani bin Adullah Foundation for Humanitarian Services (RAF) has also announced the launch of a Shariah-compliant zakat calculator on its website ahead of the holy month of Ramadan.
“The new services will be connected directly with the stock exchange, local and international gold and silver markets in a bid to enable people to calculate the amount of Zakat on their saving, shares, gold and silver," Dr Mohammad Salah Ibrahim, Deputy General Manager, RAF, told The Peninsula on the sidelines of a press conference at the headquarters of RAF.
“To access Zakat Calculator, the users will have to access the website of RAF. They will be needed only to enter the amount of money, numbers of shares, quantity of gold and silver they possess and the calculator will give them the exact amount of Zakat they are supposed to pay,” said Ibrahim.
As one of the 'five pillars' of Islam, Zakat is a religious obligation for all Muslims who meet the necessary criteria of wealth. It is not a charitable contribution, and is considered to be obligatory alms. Zakat is based on the income and the value of one's possessions. It is customarily 2.5 percent of a Muslim's total savings and wealth above a minimum amount known as "Nisab".
“The RAF obtained permit for collecting Zakat from the Regulatory Authority for Charitable Activities. Now people can give Zakat to RAF through an online payment system available on the website.”
The move is part of a new strategy of RAF that focused on adopting modern technology to approach the people seeking finance for the charity projects.
“Now we are living in the era of technology. We realised that modern means of communications like social media – Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, among others, and websites are cheaper and more effective than traditional media.”
Ibrahim further said: "We believe that Zakat Calculator and other modern means of communication will help increase the revenue of RAF that meant to spend in various charity works inside Qatar and abroad. We have targets to collect money for implementing 600 charity projects worth QR100m in 60 countries in all over the world during upcoming Ramadan."
