Zakah on money given to a man to work with
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner:
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. He says: I gave a man money to work with, and the time for its zakah has arrived. Should I pay the zakah now, or after he returns it to me?
The Shaykh:
If you gave it, yes.
The questioner:
You gave a man money to work with.
The Shaykh:
He works with it as a mudarabah (profit-sharing partnership), with the profit shared between you and him, or as a loan you gave him to work with. This is possible if you intended that you lent him the money. In that case, it has become a debt. If the man is not delaying payment and is not bankrupt, you pay zakah on it every year, because it is in the status of money in your possession.
If he is bankrupt or delaying payment, and you do not know whether you will receive it or not, you pay zakah when you receive it; its path is the path of a debt. However, if you gave it to him as a mudarabah (profit-sharing partnership) for him to trade with, and the profit is shared between you, this is a mudarabah (profit-sharing partnership), not a loan. In this case, the money is subject to the zakah of partnership, on you and on him. You pay zakah on both the profit and the capital, on you and on him. Yes.
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. He says: I gave a man money to work with, and the time for its zakah has arrived. Should I pay the zakah now, or after he returns it to me?
The Shaykh:
If you gave it, yes.
The questioner:
You gave a man money to work with.
The Shaykh:
He works with it as a mudarabah (profit-sharing partnership), with the profit shared between you and him, or as a loan you gave him to work with. This is possible if you intended that you lent him the money. In that case, it has become a debt. If the man is not delaying payment and is not bankrupt, you pay zakah on it every year, because it is in the status of money in your possession.
If he is bankrupt or delaying payment, and you do not know whether you will receive it or not, you pay zakah when you receive it; its path is the path of a debt. However, if you gave it to him as a mudarabah (profit-sharing partnership) for him to trade with, and the profit is shared between you, this is a mudarabah (profit-sharing partnership), not a loan. In this case, the money is subject to the zakah of partnership, on you and on him. You pay zakah on both the profit and the capital, on you and on him. Yes.
Source
شرح إغاثة اللهفان من مصائد الشيطان لابن القيم، الباب الأول في انقسام القلوب إلى صحيح وسقيم وميت — islamhouse.com (1:04:31)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.