Give Zakat

Sadaqah is voluntary charity, given at any time, in any amount. Zakat is a duty with rules about who may receive it. If you want the religious status of a gift confirmed, ask a qualified scholar or your local imam. This page is not a fatwa.

The eight categories of recipient are set out in the Qur’an (9:60). World Aid Network’s medical programmes serve people who cannot pay for treatment. Whether that meets the category you intend is for you and a scholar to decide.

Some UK charities sell a “Zakat-eligible” label with their own advisors. We will not do that. Eligibility depends on scholarly interpretation, the patient’s poverty, and how funds are paid. We pay partner hospitals against named patient lists. We never send cash to individuals.

If you need a personal ruling — a complex business, a disputed school of thought, or a gift that is not medical care for the poor — skip this page and speak to a scholar. Use the Zakat Calculator UK for the arithmetic, then give where your scholar is satisfied.

Most cash-only tools miss gold by weight, shares, ISAs, crypto, accessible pension and business stock. The full Zakat calculator on zakat-calculator.org.uk covers those, minus short-term debts, against today’s silver or gold Nisab.

That site is operated for World Aid Network’s Zakat giving. Calculate there. Then either pay on that donate page, or give by card here and tell us the gift is Zakat. Either way, treatment is paid to partner hospitals, not as cash.

The silver weight commonly used is 612.36 grams. The gold weight commonly used is 87.48 grams. Many scholars prefer the silver Nisab because it brings more people into the duty. Schools differ. We will not pick one for you.

A figure published in a blog last year is already out of date. Live metal prices are why the dedicated calculator exists.

If you restrict the gift to eye surgery, it pays the surgeon, intraocular lens, consumables, anaesthesia and follow-up at a partner hospital. If you restrict it to cancer, it pays treatment costs for a named patient. Unrestricted gifts are allocated inside our Objects.

World Aid Network does not run clinics and does not send overseas surgical teams. Clinicians are licensed locally — PMDC in Pakistan, KKI in Indonesia, MMC in Malaysia.

Cataracts are a leading cause of preventable blindness. The operation is short. The benefit — being able to see, work and move independently — continues. That is why many donors also give the same gift as Sadaqah Jariyah. Those are different intentions. Pick one with advice if you are unsure.

The dedicated Zakat site has its own eye-surgery cause page. This site’s encyclopaedia is the eye surgery programme and the Gift of Sight Appeal. Typical cost here is £200, not a lower figure used elsewhere.

In Pakistan that includes partner hospitals in cities such as Karachi and Islamabad. We pay the hospital. We do not hand money to the family. If your scholar is satisfied that the patient is among those who may receive Zakat, this is how the pounds move.

The dedicated Zakat site explains how Zakat can be recorded on a segregated ledger there. On worldaidnetwork.org, card checkout is already open. If you pay here, write that the gift is Zakat when you contact us, or use the Zakat donate page on zakat-calculator.org.uk so the intention is marked at checkout.

Emergency relief on this site — food, water, hygiene kits and shelter — is a separate programme. Do not assume disaster kits are Zakat-eligible. Ask a scholar. This page is about medical care for people who cannot pay.

You can calculate Zakat on the Zakat Calculator UK and still give a separate Sadaqah gift here. They are not the same pot unless you decide they are.

Until registration, do not assume a 25% top-up. We will contact donors when Gift Aid becomes claimable. The registration status page carries the live legal position.

Use the full Zakat calculator to get the number. Use this page to understand the programmes. Use Sadaqah eye surgery if you are giving voluntarily rather than as obligatory Zakat. Do not treat the two sites as two different liabilities.

Pakistan programmes include partner hospitals in Karachi and Islamabad, among others. Indonesia and Malaysia use locally registered clinicians in the same hospital-direct model. Country detail sits on the eye surgery and cancer pages, and on the dedicated site’s where-we-work section.