Throughout the centuries the Muslim ummah, and their scholars inparticular, have faced questions and challenges about zakāt.However, there is a vast difference between raising questions for thesake of seeking knowledge and making allegations based on mereassumption rather than on ijtihād. Zakāt is the third pillar of Islamand it should therefore be realized that all the rulings and normsrelated to zakāt are fixed by sharīʿah texts which cannot be changedbecause of the mutability of time and space. To some people certainaspects of zakāt seem irrelevant to our contemporary time andtherefore they suggest revising the whole concept of zakāt andapplying it according to our modern era. However, anyone whoventures to challenge the established norms of zakāt must at least bewell versed in the major sources of sharīʿah such as the Qur’ān,sunnah, ijmāʿ, qiyās as well as in Islamic jurisprudence and theArabic language. Otherwise what they pose are baseless claimsrather than intellectual questions. The authors of this paper focusmainly on three aspects: concept and scope of ijtihād, discussion andresponses to various allegations raised by Volker Nienhaus andtextual evidences for the proper understanding of zakāt. The paperhas adopted historical and descriptive methods of analysis
