The Ruling on Taking Zakah from the Poor and the Head Tax
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner:
May Allah reward you, O Shaykh. Some countries take zakah even from the poor person who does not have the food for the day, meaning they are not in a position to give. What is the ruling in Islam regarding this practice?
The Shaykh:
It is not permissible. Zakah is taken from the one who possesses the nisab (the minimum threshold for zakah), whether in camels, cattle, sheep, gold, or silver. As for taking zakah based on the number of heads, that is forbidden for you. They call it a tax.
The questioner:
They say
May Allah reward you, O Shaykh. Some countries take zakah even from the poor person who does not have the food for the day, meaning they are not in a position to give. What is the ruling in Islam regarding this practice?
The Shaykh:
It is not permissible. Zakah is taken from the one who possesses the nisab (the minimum threshold for zakah), whether in camels, cattle, sheep, gold, or silver. As for taking zakah based on the number of heads, that is forbidden for you. They call it a tax.
The questioner:
They say
Source
شرح بلوغ المرام [ ابن باز ] [ الشرح الجديد ]، تابع كتاب الزكاة - 1 — islamhouse.com (6:42)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.