What is the ruling on paying zakah to a needy father?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
He says: Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success, is it permissible for me to pay my zakah to my father, and I do not live with him?
Answer:
No, you do not pay your zakah to your father. Even if your father is in Mashrab and you are in Maghrib, the zakah of a son is not permissible for his father, nor the reverse, and the zakah of a father is not permissible for his son. This is because it is obligatory for one of them to provide for the other if he is in need, and he should not make zakah a substitute for the maintenance that is obligatory upon him. Yes.
He says: Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success, is it permissible for me to pay my zakah to my father, and I do not live with him?
Answer:
No, you do not pay your zakah to your father. Even if your father is in Mashrab and you are in Maghrib, the zakah of a son is not permissible for his father, nor the reverse, and the zakah of a father is not permissible for his son. This is because it is obligatory for one of them to provide for the other if he is in need, and he should not make zakah a substitute for the maintenance that is obligatory upon him. Yes.
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، ما حكم دفع الزكاة للوالد المحتاج؟ للشيخ الفوزان — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.