In this thought-provoking CIK Talk, Dr. Sohail Hanif — Chief Executive Officer of the National Zakat Foundation (UK) and specialist in Ḥanafī legal theory — re-examines zakat not merely as an annual obligation, but as a foundational institution in the construction of the ummah.
Drawing upon classical fiqh and Prophetic metaphors of the believers as a body and a building, Dr. Hanif presents Islamic law itself as a “map of Medina” — a civilizational blueprint through which faith communities are built, protected, and sustained. Within this map, ṣalāh and zakat form the twin pillars that ground the social and political life of Muslims.
He explores:
This talk challenges Muslims to move beyond transactional understandings of zakat and recover its role as a pillar of communal belonging, civilizational responsibility, and moral solidarity.
Drawing upon classical fiqh and Prophetic metaphors of the believers as a body and a building, Dr. Hanif presents Islamic law itself as a “map of Medina” — a civilizational blueprint through which faith communities are built, protected, and sustained. Within this map, ṣalāh and zakat form the twin pillars that ground the social and political life of Muslims.
He explores:
- The ummah as a purposeful collective, and why Islamic law cannot be reduced to individual piety
- The localization of zakat and the right of the neighbour
- The historical institutionalization of zakat through collectors, courts, and public administration
- The distinction between private and public wealth in classical fiqh
- The categories of fī sabīlillāh and al-muʾallafatu qulūbuhum and their social-political implications
- How Muslims can re-center zakat in societies without a unified polity
This talk challenges Muslims to move beyond transactional understandings of zakat and recover its role as a pillar of communal belonging, civilizational responsibility, and moral solidarity.
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Dr. Sohail HanifDr. Sohail Hanif is the Chief Executive Officer at the National Zakat Foundation. He works on Islamic legal theory, with a focus on the Ḥanafī school of law. He received an MA and DPhil from the University of Oxford. His doctoral thesis, A Theory of Early Classical Ḥanafism: Legal Epistemology in the Hidāyah of Burhān al-Dīn ‘Alī ibn Abī Bakr al-Marghīnānī (d. 593/1197), studies the interplay of rationality and tradition in a major work of legal commentary. Sohail has also spent over a decade in Jordan, where he studied a full curriculum of Islamic sciences with traditional ‘ulamā’. He was previously the Head of Arabic Sciences at Qasid Arabic Institute in Amman, BA Program Manager and Lecturer at the Cambridge Muslim College, and an instructor in Islamic studies at Qibla Online Academy. Additionally, he has taught undergraduate classes on Modern Islam and Qur’anic studies at the University of Oxford. He has also served as Head of Research and Development at the National Zakat Foundation.
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