Zakat Program : Silver at Cost Price

Money is the life-blood of economic activity in a soceity and as such, it must circulate for the wheels of production, trade and utilization to keep running. Every economist agrees to this conclusion: they only differ in how to achieve this.

Bankers attempt to defend the fraudulant fractional reserve system on this same basis, claiming that in this way, people can both own their money and still allow it to circulate. Sort of like eating your cake and having it too, except that it is technically impossible, and happens only as a ruse, as a complex construct of smoke and mirrors to make everyone feel good about it, before ending in a crash.

The Islamic system of Zakat, in contrast to fractional reserve based banking, is the more natural and sound way of making money to circulate and keeping the economic ecosystem in balance. Through it, the rich are to give out a portion of their wealth (not income), and put it into the hands of the poor, thus circulating part of their wealth which would otherwise remain stagnant. Scholars like Dr. AbdulQadir have expounded these economic principles excellently in their research on the Islamic concept of Dawlah - the state of constantly circulating and rotating ownership of wealth.

Zakat is considered one of the five pillars of Islam

To learn more about Zakat and its rules and regulations, our visitors are encouraged to look up this wonderful website by Hajj Amal Douglas, Zakat Pages. A quick overview of the Zakat rulings are as follows:

1. Must be paid on wealth personally owned and stangant for an year, 2.5%
2. Must be paid on certain trade goods and business capital
3. Must be collected in real, tangible assets, Ayn
4. Must be distributed to specific categories of recipients, including the poor, the destitute and travellers
5. Must be collected by a local Muslim authority
6. Must be distributed locally, to the people in the same community from which it is collected

Since Zakat must be paid in tangible wealth, one of the primary goals of the Gold Dinar movement is to restore this fallen pillar by once again allowing people to pay their Zakat in tangible assets - Dinars and Dirhams. And by doing so, pass on real wealth into the hands of the people, as opposed to how it is currently hoarded away in central bank vaults, while the people are forced to settle for pieces of paper.

Dinar Wakala, in collaboration with local Muslim community leaders in North America, has now started a unique initiative to support the restoration of Zakat on its proper footings: Through our Non-Profit¹ Zakat Program.

Here are some salient features of how this program will work.

• The program will be active from the Ramadhan moonsighting right up till Eid-ul-Adha
• During this period, Customers will see an additional checkbox during order placement, which will indicate that this order is for Zakat payment. Customers will create a regular Dirham order, and check mark this "Zakat Order" box.
• In the Ship-To address, customers will choose the contact name and address of the local Emir or community leader designated for Zakat collection. For the time being, they can also indicate the name of any Zakat eligible charity. This is a necessary condition for the program to work i.e. the Ship To contact (recipient or Zakat collector) cannot be the same as the Bill To address i.e. the person taking out the Zakat.
• Dinar Wakala will recieve the order, hold all of the Zakat money thus recieved, and finally aggregate it for conversion into Silver Dirhams, all before the end of Ramadhan.
• Once the money is converted into Dirhams, Dinar Wakala will ship the entire order to its respective recipients, without keeping any margin or profit from it. The only payments made out from this money will be to Common Carriers (e.g. USPS), Payment Processors (e.g. PayPal) and the Sub-Contracted Mint. No proceeds will go to Dinar Wakala, and the time and effort expended by our personnel to manage and coordinate will be a free service to the community.

Benefit To Zakat Payers and Recipients
There are two major benefits of this program.

1. Sunnah made Convenient
   A lot of people we talked to, agreed with the need to pay Zakat in tangible goods, but found it very inconvenient and full of hassle. We are now converting it into a seamless online experience for any one to follow. We even suggest names of Zakat collectors and Emirs for major states.
2. Bigger Bang for the Buck
   Although many Dinar activists and interest groups are lobbying with governments to adopt and produce the Dinar, till such time that it does not happen, the Dinar movement rests upon local communities and private initiatives. This is one reason why the overhead costs of producing the medallions must be passed on to the customers. But under this program, as the Dirhams are going to be distributed at cost price to Dinar Wakala, the end recipients of Zakat are going to get a much bigger amount of Silver in relation to the money being taken out for Zakat.

We encourage all of our customers to make maximum use of this program, and ensure that they pay their Zakat in Dinars and Dirhams this year. For any questions, feel free to reach us by email or telephone.