Quora Answer: Is Save the Children Fund Eligible for Zakat?

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “Is ‘Save the Children Fund’ eligible for zakat?” 

No, it is not.  It is a fund, not one of the aswnaf, categories of people eligible for zakat.  In fact, being an orphan is itself not an aswnaf, unless the orphan falls under the other aswnaf such as fakir, indigent; miskin, poor; or gharimin, debtors. 

Another condition of zakat is tamlik, transfer of ownership.  The majority of the fuqaha’, jurists, agree that the condition for a valid payment of zakat is that someone deserving should be given possession of the zakat as its owner.  The following is ijma’, consensus.  If you give to a fund, even if all the money was spent for the benefit of these very people without having given them possession of it, that zakat is considered to be unpaid. 

However, in orphanages where meals and clothes are given to orphans as being owned by them, then, it is possible to spend zakat funds to the extent of this specific expenditure.  In such a case, the orphans fall under one of the eight aswnaf, as mentioned above, since being an orphan is not one of them.  Similarly, the cost of the medicine supplied to the poor, in their possession, could be charged to the zakat fund.  This applies to the orphanage itself, not the fund to support it.



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