Why Do Muslims Pay Zakah?

Muslims have to pay Zakat in order to fulfill the obligations of the third pillar of Islam. Every day we may wonder what is it that we can do to cleanse our lives from heavy hearts. Every day we go about our lives thinking what we can and will do to improve our lives. We believe it is solely based on our strengths and persona to make it through. Believers start the day with praying and supplicating, to be blessed and protected for ourselves and our beloved from all harm and haram. We wish and hope for a peaceful day where our children, our parents, our neighbors, and our coworkers are content and pleasant. Not knowing there is one more selfless act that would truly complete our day. We go about it without noticing. To truly be happy, you have to have a balance. It is that balance between the spiritual, the mental, the physical, the social, and the environmental that truly brings us that pure existence. Although we have been working hard towards our self-improvement, it is paying back our dues and living up to our duties towards community and society that needs to be visited performed often.

What does the Quran say about paying Zakah?

“Take alms out of their property, you would cleanse them and purify them thereby, and pray for them; surely your prayer is a relief to them; and Allah is Hearing, Knowing.”
[Al-Quran 9:103]”And keep up prayer and pay the poor-due (Zakat) and obey the Messenger, so that mercy may be shown to you.”
[Al-Quran 24:56]

Islam is about the collectiveness and togetherness; union effort. So, to entirely achieve what you hope and ask for every day, it is those among us that go about their lives as individuals in balance with the society who achieve that balance. Can the poor have that true balance as well? Without that collective and togetherness, it is a struggle for every human being. The ungiving wealthy may go on without giving or giving enough, but their balance is lacking and will always be lacking no matter how much wealth they accumulate. The unreceiving poor may survive without receiving or receiving enough, but they will always be in a struggle to stand on their feet and become givers themselves so they too can achieve that balance. Our very existence with society and the environment will suffer if we don’t bring this balance into our lives. It does not take much thinking to put one and one together to see how our environment becomes a victim of our imbalance. It is that excessiveness in wealth and disparity that takes its toll on earth and the seas.
Hence, the verse in the Quran that truly brings corruption upon the environment due to our actions or lack of:

“Corruption doth appear on land and sea because of (the evil) which human’s hands have done, that He may make them taste a part of that which they have done, so that they may return.”
[Al-Quran 30:41]Therefore, besides that Zakah is a pillar of Islam, it is a pillar of self-content and the source to society’s and the environment’s purity that will help achieve a holistic balance way of life.