Zakaah on Salaries

Question No 1: I am an employee who earns a good salary, all praise is for Allah, but I do not know how I should offer Zakaah for it. Should I offer it for every month, or should I select a certain month and offer Zakaah for whatever I have in my hands, whether I earned it from my work or otherwise?

Also, if I spent all my money and then earned some more which reaches the nisaab, should I start calculating the year from the date I received the first amount which finished, or from the date I received the new amount?

Answer: Whenever you obtained a certain amount of money, you should start to calculate the year from that date you receive the new amount [if it reached the nisaab].

Whenever you obtain money, you should make a chart mentioning this. When a year passes on this new amount [which has reached the nisaab], you should offer its Zakaah. Zakaah should be offered for what you obtained in Muharram in Muharram [of the following year], what you obtained in Safar in Safar [of the following year], and what you obtained in Rabee’-ul-Aakhir in Rabee’-ul-Aakhir[of the following year] , etc.

But if you paid Zakaah for the last amount beforehand along with the first, paying it before its time, it is fine and you are thanked. So if you have received a salary for Muharran, Safar, Rabee’-ul-Awwal, Rabee’-ul-Aakhir, etc., and you have recorded all of them, and then you pay the Zakaah for all of them beforehand along with Muharram, there is no harm in this. You will be paying the Zakaah for all of them when a year passes on the first amount. There is no harm if you do this; rather this is better and preferable.

But what is obligatory upon you is that you pay the Zakaah when its time comes; whenever a year passes upon a certain amount [which has reached the nisaab], you must pay what is due upon it according to your records and time. And if you paid what was due upon some portion of that wealth before its actual time along with [the payment of Zakaah on the wealth] before it, then there is no harm in this as we mentioned. (Majmoo’-ul Fataawaa, Abdul-Azeez ibn Baaz, v.14, p,138)

Question No 2: I am an employee who earns a salary, and every month I save a portion of it. There is no certain percentage which I save, so how should I pay the Zakaah due upon this wealth?

Answer: It is obligatory upon you to pay the Zakaah of every portion which you have saved if a year passes with it in your possession and it had reached the nisaab. If you paid the Zakaah for all the amounts beforehand at the time a year passes on the first amount, this is sufficient.

In this case, the Zakaah on the later amounts would have been paid beforehand before a year passes upon it, and paying Zakaah before a year passes upon wealth is permissible, especially in cases where there is a need and a legislative advantage in doing so. (Majmoo’-ul Fataawaa, Abdul-Azeez ibn Baaz, v.14, p, 143).