A quiet notice V2Melody closes at midnight on , Spanish time.

Closes

A note from Richard

V2Melody will close at midnight on 20 January 2028

This site has been a retirement project in musical poetry: poems chosen with care and set to music, offered freely for as long as it felt right to keep the garden open.

The work no longer holds the place it once did in my life. I have gone as far with it as I wish to go. Like a sand mandala, it was made to be completed and then released. I am not attached to its permanence, and I do not believe any of it needs to last beyond the time it was given. The poems were already here before I arrived and began to experiment with them. They will still be here when these musical experiments, and indeed myself, have been swept away, like the sand of a mandala. Nothing has been lost.

I want a simpler end to my life, days of simple love and enjoyment with my wonderful wife of 20 years. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit that life.

From 4 November 2026 I will not be adding new poems or musical poems to the site.

The experimental music I am making now is on my Suno profile. Those pieces stay there, and are not added to this site.

Until midnight on 20 January 2028, Spanish time, everything remains available exactly as it is. That is when my VPS server contract comes to an end, and it will not be renewed. After that, the server will be switched off and the site will disappear.

The Mandala Is Finished explains this more fully.

Thank you to anyone who found a poem, a track, or a quiet moment here.

The pleasure was in the making.

Richard

Home › Glossary › Letter Z

Zakat

World Religion
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

The Islamic obligation of almsgiving, requiring Muslims to donate a portion of wealth to the poor and needy annually.

Detailed Definition
Zakat is the third pillar of Islam, purifying wealth and fostering social justice. It is not charity but a right of the poor. In poetry, zakat appears as an act of gratitude and solidarity—sharing Allah’s bounty to balance society. Poets describe it as sowing seeds of compassion or extinguishing the fire of greed. Zakat symbolizes the ethical dimension of faith: that true worship includes caring for the community and recognizing all wealth as divine trust.
Example
Example in poetry:
Islamic poetry describes "the zakat purifies wealth, giving portion back to those in need"; A devotional poem states "she calculated her zakat carefully, fulfilling the third pillar of faith"; In contemporary Muslim verse, "zakat is not charity but obligation, recognition that wealth is trust"; Traditional poetry captures "before Eid he distributed zakat, measuring grain for the poor"; A poet exploring justice writes "zakat redistributes abundance, making community from inequality"; Reflective verse uses "zakat as spiritual practice, loosening attachment to what we claim as ours"
Additional Notes
Zakat is one of the Five Pillars of Islam, an obligatory almsgiving that purifies wealth by redistributing a portion (typically 2.5% of savings and assets above a minimum threshold, or Nisab) to the poor and needy. It is not charity (Sadaqah), which is voluntary, but a duty owed by those who have to those who have not. It functions as a form of social welfare and economic justice. For poets, Zakat symbolizes the Islamic ethos of community, the purification of the self through sharing, and the idea that wealth is a trust from God, not an absolute possession.
Also Known As
Zakah Alms Tax Obligatory Charity Charity
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