Towards A Unified Zakat System

2.4 An example of Zakat regulationAt present, there is no regulation of Zakat or personalincome tax in any of the GCC countries (except in SaudiArabia where Zakat is collected to a limited extent). Theimplementation of Zakat, in the early days of the presentSaudi dynasty, was not regulated by government, as peoplethemselves distributed Zakat to the poor according to theinstructions of Islam. However, although people know thatZakat is one of the five fundamental Islamic principles,many of them, due to their lack of education, were unawareof the principles on which it was levied. People oftendeclared their wealth to the religious leaders for them todecide how much should be given to the needy. They sometimessubmitted this amount to the Qadi (religious judge) of theirtown to spend it, on their behalf, on those who were in need(Jummjom, 1995).According to Yahya (1988) the first steps were taken towardsthe collection of Zakat. This followed the announcement thatlocal administrative boards were to be established in manycities and towns, like Hejaz and Al-Ahssa, to supervise boththe collection and distribution of the Zakat. In Najd, andother parts of the country in which the boards did notexist, the assumption is that people continued distributing47