Ḥawl

Hawl is the requirement that zakatable wealth be held for a complete lunar year before the obligation to pay zakat is triggered. This rule serves both practical and spiritual purposes: practically, it distinguishes between windfall wealth that quickly passes and genuine accumulated savings; spiritually, it gives the believer a year to notice whether their attachment to the wealth is growing, and a yearly reckoning that functions as a spiritual audit. Al-Ghazali notes that the Muslim who marks the hawl with genuine inner reflection — gratitude for the provision, assessment of how the wealth was used, and generous distribution of the due — has turned a legal duty into a moment of profound self-examination.

As understood in the classical tradition of Imam al-Ghazali and the scholars of his school.