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English translation

He, the Exalted, said: 'And establish the prayer and give the alms (Quran 2:43/al-Baqarah).' And there are many verses and traditions like this.

Among the obligatory ordinances of faith is zakat (almsgiving), incumbent upon whoever it becomes due for, and there is no turning away from it. But zakat becomes obligatory upon the completion of a bounty: thus two hundred dirhams, which is a complete bounty, when under someone's disposal by right of ownership, five dirhams become obligatory upon it; and twenty dinars is a complete bounty, and after a year passes half a dinar becomes obligatory upon it; and five camels is a complete bounty, upon which a sheep becomes obligatory; and likewise for other kinds of wealth resembling these.

But rank and standing (jah) also has its zakat, just as wealth does, since it too is a complete bounty; as the Messenger of God, peace be upon him, said: 'Verily God the Exalted has enjoined upon you the zakat of your rank, just as He has enjoined upon you the zakat of your wealth.' And also his saying, peace be upon him: 'Everything has a zakat, and the zakat of a house is the guest-room (hospitality).'

The reality of zakat is the rendering of thanks for a bounty, of the same kind as that bounty. Good health is a great bounty, and every limb has its zakat, which is that one keeps all one's limbs immersed in service and occupied in worship, and inclines to no idle play or amusement, so that the due of the zakat of that bounty may be rendered. So the inner bounty too has its zakat, whose reality cannot be enumerated because of its abundance. So for that too there must be a zakat suited to it, and that is the gnosis (recognition) of the bounty, outward and inward. And when the servant knows that the bounty of God the Exalted upon him is boundless, a boundless gratitude becomes obligatory as the zakat of a boundless bounty.

And in sum, the zakat of the bounty of this world is not praiseworthy in the view of this group (the Sufis), since miserliness is blameworthy, and complete miserliness is required for someone to bind up two hundred dirhams and imprison them under his disposal for a whole year, and then give five dirhams of it. And since the generous have the way of bestowing wealth and the practice of liberality, upon what wealth would zakat become obligatory?

I found that one of the scholars of the exoteric, by way of testing, asked Shibli about zakat: 'What must be done?' He said: 'When miserliness exists and wealth is at hand, from every two hundred dirhams five dirhams must be given, and from every twenty dinars half a dinar, according to your school; but according to my school, one should possess nothing at all, so that you may be freed from the trouble of zakat.' He said: 'Who is your imam (authority) in this matter?' He said: 'Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, may God be pleased with him, who gave away all he had. The Messenger, peace be upon him, said to him: What have you left for your family? He said: God and His Messenger.'

And from the Commander of the Faithful Ali, may God ennoble his face, it is related that he said in a qasida (ode): 'No zakat of wealth became obligatory upon me, And does zakat become obligatory upon a generous man?'

So the wealth of the generous is freely bestowed and their blood is spilled unavenged. They neither act miserly over wealth nor quarrel over blood, since these are not their possession. But if someone commits to ignorance and says: 'Since I have no wealth, I am independent of the knowledge of zakat,' this is absurd, since learning knowledge is an individual obligation (fard ayn), and to deem oneself independent of knowledge is pure disbelief.

And one of the trials of the age is this, that the pretenders to piety and poverty abandon knowledge out of ignorance. Once I was instructing a group of Sufis who were beginners in worship, and an ignorant one fell in among them, and I was speaking of the chapter of 'the alms of camels' and expounding the rulings of bint labun, bint makhad, and hiqqa (categories of camels due for zakat). That committer of ignorance became distressed at heart by that matter; he rose and said: 'I have no camel, that the knowledge of bint labun should be of use to me.' I said: 'O you! Just as knowledge is needed for giving zakat, it is also needed for receiving it. If someone gives you a bint labun and you receive it, then even so the knowledge of bint labun is not to be abandoned. And if someone has no wealth and no need of wealth either, still the obligation of knowledge does not fall from him.' So we seek refuge in God from ignorance.