Bayt al-mal is an Arabic term that is translated as "House of money" or "House of Wealth." Historically, it was a financial institution responsible for the administration of taxes in Islamic states, particularly in the early Islamic Caliphate. It served as a royal treasury for the caliphs and sultans, managing personal finances and government expenditures. Further, it administered distributions of zakah revenues for public works. Modern Islamic economists deem the institutional framework appropriate for contemporary Islamic societies.

Bayt al-mal was the department that dealt with the revenues and all other economical matters of the state. In the time of Muhammad there was no permanent Bait-ul-Mal or public treasury. Whatever revenues or other amounts were received were distributed immediately. There were no salaries to be paid, and there was no state expenditure. Hence the need for the treasury at public level was not felt. In the time of Abu Bakr as well there was not treasury. Abu Bakr earmarked a house where all money was kept on receipt. As all money was distributed immediately the treasury generally remained locked up. At the time of the death of Abu Bakr there was only one dirham in the public treasury.

Samir Saleh Abdullah Al-Suwailem (Arabic: سامر صالح عبد الله السويلم‎) (April 14, 1969 – March 20, 2002), more commonly known as Emir Khattab (also transliterated as Amir Khattab and Ameer Khattab) meaning Commander Khattab, or Leader Khattab, and also known as Habib Abdul Rahman, was a Muslim guerilla fighter and financier working with Chechen Mujahideen in the First Chechen War and the Second Chechen War.

The origins and real identity of Khattab remained a mystery to most until after his death, when his brother gave an interview to the press. He died on 20 March 2002 following exposure to a poison letter delivered via a courier that had been recruited by Russia's FSB.

Khattab was born Samir Saleh Abdullah Al-Suwailem in Saudi Arabia.

At the age of 18, Khattab left Saudi Arabia to participate in the fight against the Soviet Union during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. During this time, he permanently incapacitated his right hand and lost several fingers after an accident with improvised explosives.

Mehmet Nâzım Adil (Arabic: محمد ناظم الحقاني ‎, born April 21, 1922 (CE) / Sha'ban 26, 1340 AH), formally referred to as Muhammad Nazim Adil al-Qubrusi al-Haqqani (Turkish: Muhammed Nazım El-Hakkani), often called Shaykh Nazim, is a Turkish Cypriot Sufi Sheikh and leader of the Naqshbandi-Haqqani Order.

Born in Larnaca, Cyprus, Nazim traces his lineage back to the 11th-century Sufi Saint Abdul Qadir Jilani and 13th-century mystical poet Jalaluddin Rumi. His maternal and paternal grandfathers were sheikhs in the Qadiri and Mevlevi orders, respectively. As a child, the young Nazim showed a propensity towards spirituality that would determine his future. His father sent him to school to study secular knowledge during the day, followed by the evening in which he studied Islam at the local maktab. This is where he would learn the basics of Islamic law, jurisprudence, the hadith and Qur'anic exegesis.

At a very young age, Shaykh Nazim displayed unexplained talents in the form of explaining to his teachers what they were going to teach before it was introduced. After completing secondary school in 1940, at the age of 18 Nazim moved to Istanbul, where two brothers and a sister were living. He studied chemical engineering at Istanbul University. While advancing in his non-religious studies, he continued his education in Islamic theology and the Arabic language under the tutelage of Cemalettin Elassonli (died 1955 CE). Shaykh Nazim received a degree in chemical engineering, yet he would later state, "I felt no attraction to modern science. Rather, my heart was always drawn to the spiritual sciences." He is fluent in Turkish (native), Arabic, English, and Greek.