ISLAMABAD: Pakistanis are paying more than £1.7 billion ($2.19 billion) in zakat annually, with the vast majority of recipients being women, according to a study released this week by researchers from the UK-based International Center for Tax and Development (ICTD) and Lahore University of Management Sciences.
Zakat is a form of obligatory almsgiving in Islam and one of its five central pillars. It requires Muslims who meet a certain wealth threshold to donate a fixed portion, usually 2.5 percent of their savings and assets annually, to those in need.
The findings of the study are based on a 2024 survey of 7,500 Sunni Pakistanis, shedding new light on the scale and social role of zakat, according to a post shared on the ICTD website.
“In a newly published factsheet, we estimate that self-identified Sunnis in Pakistan pay over 619 billion rupees (GBP 1.7 billion) in zakat annually,” the study’s authors wrote. “In 2024, the average zakat giver paid about 15,000 rupees (about GBP 43) with over 50 million Pakistanis contributing.”
“Our data suggests that every year, more money is distributed to people in need in Pakistan through zakat than through the largest state-led cash transfer program, the Benazir Income Support Programme,” they added.
Pakistan’s Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) has a 2024/2025 budget of Rs598.7 billion ($2.16 billion), while zakat contributions, largely unregulated and directly disbursed by individuals, exceed that amount.
The federal excise duty and even official development aid received by Pakistan in recent years fall short of annual zakat totals, according to the study.
The research also reveals that Pakistan’s official zakat fund, established in the 1980s for compulsory collection and disbursed through state-appointed councils, plays a negligible role.
“Most Pakistanis prefer to bypass the state fund — unsurprising in a context where individuals have low trust in the government,” the authors said. “The national state fund collects only a fiftieth of what we estimate to be contributed annually, while survey respondents overwhelmingly noted that they prefer to manage their own zakat giving. In our survey, we find that less than 2 percent of zakat givers are going through the state fund.”
The study said most zakat is given directly to individuals, or via mosques, schools, and, to a lesser extent, NGOs, bypassing formal state channels.
More than half of the survey respondents reported giving zakat exclusively to female recipients, with a particular preference for widows, who were perceived as especially economically vulnerable.
The study highlights that private religious giving is filling critical welfare gaps in Pakistan, particularly for marginalized groups, in the absence of robust state social protection systems.

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa administration on Saturday confirmed an “anti-terror operation” after an international wire agency reported that drone strikes killed at least 11 people, including women and children, just hours before the Pakistani Taliban announced a three-day Eid Al-Fitr ceasefire.
The strikes targeted what officials described as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) hideouts in the Katling area of Mardan district, following a TTP attack a day earlier that killed seven soldiers during an army operation elsewhere in the province.
“An anti-terror operation was conducted in the Katling mountainous area of Mardan district based on credible information about the presence of terrorists,” said Muhammad Ali Saif, spokesperson for the provincial government. “According to reports, this location was being used for the hideout and movement of terrorist elements.”
However, he added as per the information received later, there were some unarmed civilians around the scene of the incident as well.
“It is regrettable that unarmed people were killed in the operation, including women and children,” he added.
While the military has not commented publicly on the incident, police sources confirmed to AFP that three drone strikes were carried out on Friday night. It was only on Saturday morning, they said, that officials learned two women and three children were among the dead.
“In protest, local residents placed the bodies of the victims on the road,” a senior police officer told AFP, saying they were being described by locals as “innocent civilians.”
Another official said an investigation was under way to determine whether militants were present at the time of the strikes.
“It is too early to say whether the places affected were civilian areas or whether they were sheltering Taliban,” he said.
Shortly after reports of the casualties emerged, the TTP released a statement announcing a three-day ceasefire on the occasion of Eid Al-Fitr.
“The leadership of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan has decided that, on the joyous occasion of Eid Al-Fitr, a three-day ceasefire will be observed as a gesture to allow the people of Pakistan to celebrate in peace,” the group said in a statement.
It added that TTP fighters would refrain from operations on the last day of Ramadan, Eid day, and the day after Eid, but reserved the right to respond in self-defense if attacked.
The TTP, which announced a “spring offensive” earlier this month, has claimed responsibility for around 100 attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in recent weeks.
In Friday’s separate incident, seven Pakistani soldiers were killed in an hours-long gunbattle with Taliban fighters holed up in a house in the province.
The army later deployed helicopter gunships, killing eight militants, while six other soldiers were wounded, according to police sources.
According to an AFP tally, over 190 people — mostly security personnel — have been killed in militant violence in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan since the start of the year.
Last year was the deadliest in nearly a decade, with more than 1,600 fatalities nationwide, nearly half of them security forces, according to the Center for Research and Security Studies.
Islamabad blames the surge in attacks on militants using Afghan territory as a base, particularly the TTP, which Pakistan says enjoys sanctuaries across the border.
The Afghan Taliban-led government in Kabul denies this, and accuses Pakistan in return of harboring Daesh militants.
With input from AFP