Zakat, sadaqa and waqf: Islamic giving in Somalia

Three kinds of giving

• Zakat (Somali sako or zakaat): one of the five pillars of Islam. The US State Department describes it as "an Islamic annual compulsory contribution of a set amount, typically 2.5 percent of one's wealth, to benefit the poor" (US State Department, International Religious Freedom Report 2023, via ecoi.net). The Library of Congress country study lists almsgiving among the pillars and notes that whether a person must give "depend[s] upon one's ability to afford" it (Library of Congress, Somalia: A Country Study, 1992).
• Sadaqa (sadaqo): voluntary charity, given at any time.
• Waqf: an endowment. Property is given permanently "to God", and its use or income goes to a mosque, school or the poor.

Land given to God

The best-documented Somali waqf is land given to Sufi sheikhs. Leaders of religious orders asked lineage elders for land to build mosques and farming villages (jamaaco). "A piece of land was usually freely given", the Library of Congress study says, and the giver gained a blessing "since the land was considered given to God". Tenure "was a matter of charity only", so it could become insecure in disputes (Library of Congress, 1992). By the 1950s more than 90 such villages in the south held about 35,000 people (same source). See the Sufi orders in Somalia.

The state and zakat today

Somalia's Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs (Wasaaradda Awqaafta iyo Arrimaha Diinta) holds the endowments brief. In October 2025 it held a five-day workshop in Djibouti with Djibouti's Ministry of Religious Affairs, Culture and Endowments on "endowment administration and zakat collection and registration" (SONNA, 23 October 2025).

In March 2020, NZF Worldwide, an offshoot of the UK's National Zakat Foundation, said it had been engaged through the UN Development Programme to design a national zakat mechanism for Somalia, working with local authorities, Islamic scholars and the Central Bank of Somalia (Salaam Gateway, 18 March 2020). Researchers from Malaysian, Ethiopian and Sudanese universities have also studied how zakat and waqf could fund development in Somalia (Lex Forensica journal, USIM).

Forced "zakat" by al-Shabaab

Al-Shabaab runs a Zakawaat office that collects livestock and farm produce, separate from its finance office that collects cash. The Hiraal Institute, a Mogadishu research centre, reported in 2018 that the office's first head was dismissed after a year because he paid the zakat to the poor, and that afterwards only a small share went to the poor (Hiraal Institute, "The AS Finance System", 16 July 2018).

The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime calls it a "forced charitable tax" and says al-Shabaab raises over US$100 million a year, about a third of it in Mogadishu. It reports that the group uses records from notaries, port officials and property brokers to work out what businesses owe (Global Initiative, 24 April 2025). In July 2025 Somalia's intelligence agency warned businesses not to pay money demanded under threat (AllAfrica, July 2025). See al-Shabaab's structure and leaders.

Giving in Ramadan

Imams in Mogadishu urge those who can afford it to give to the poor during Ramadan, and youth groups in Somaliland collect money from businesses and the diaspora to buy food and clothes for poor families (AP via VOA, 1 April 2023; Umayma Good, Andariya, 2021). See Ramadan and Eid in Somalia.

Related

• Islamic finance, microfinance and takaful
• Islam in Somalia