Is zakah obligatory on a debt owed by a person who is unable to pay?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
Shaykh Salih, a person sent you a message saying: I gave a person ten thousand riyals, and he has not repaid them. This person is unable to pay. How do I pay the zakah on this?
Answer:
You do not owe zakah until you receive it, because as long as you do not know whether you will get it or not, and the debtor is poor and unable to pay, you must wait. If Allah makes it easy and he pays you, you pay zakah on it for one year, and there is no zakah on the time that has passed, because you did not know whether you would get it or not. Yes.
Shaykh Salih, a person sent you a message saying: I gave a person ten thousand riyals, and he has not repaid them. This person is unable to pay. How do I pay the zakah on this?
Answer:
You do not owe zakah until you receive it, because as long as you do not know whether you will get it or not, and the debtor is poor and unable to pay, you must wait. If Allah makes it easy and he pays you, you pay zakah on it for one year, and there is no zakah on the time that has passed, because you did not know whether you would get it or not. Yes.
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، [4546] هل تجب الزكاة في الدَّين الذي على مُعسِر؟ - صالح الفوزان — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.