The Philosophy of Zakāt — Page 21
21 Warning F or T hose W ho D o N ot P ay Zak ā t The Holy Quran also warns those who do not pay Zak ā t that they shall be punished. Zak ā t is so important an injunction that its defaulter earns, without the least doubt, the displeasure of Allah Who has warned all in the Quran: ‘. . . And woe to idolators who do not pay the Zak ā t, and they it is who deny the hereafter. ’ Those who do not pay the Zak ā t are called ‘idolators’ in the above verse and they have been warned in the following verse of the Holy Quran: ‘And let not those, who are niggardly with respect to what Allah has given them of His bounty, think that it is good for them; nay, it is evil for them. That with respect to which they were niggardly shall be put as a collar round their necks on the day of Resurrection. ’ ( 3:181 ) And in the Chapter Al - Tauba He says: ‘. . . And those who hoard up gold and silver and spend it not in the way of Allah — give to them the tidings of a painful punishment. On the day when it shall be made hot in the fire of Hell, and their foreheads and their sides and