Zakah on the funds of charitable boxes collected by families
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner:
The questioner says, and this is related to the previous question: Your Eminence, or Honorable Shaykh, is zakah obligatory on the funds of the charitable boxes that some families collect to pay for the calamities that befall any member of the family? And are such boxes permissible?
The Shaykh:
This is cooperative insurance. They collect it to help whoever among them is struck by a calamity. It is charity from them, and they do not get it back. They pay it as assistance, with no expectation of return. This is called cooperative insurance. There is nothing wrong with it. Each person pays a thousand, or a hundred, or two hundred, so that if one of them is struck by a calamity or misfortune, they help him and compensate him from this money, with no intention of getting it back. It is only assistance and donation. This is a form of cooperation, or to build a mosque, or a ribat, or other forms of good, or to give to a group of poor and needy people, or to buy books with it, or the like of that. Yes.
The questioner:
He asks: Is there zakah in it if it is prohibited?
The Shaykh:
No, there is no zakah in it, as long as they donated it as a donation. It is all for Allah, and there is no zakah in it. Yes.
The questioner says, and this is related to the previous question: Your Eminence, or Honorable Shaykh, is zakah obligatory on the funds of the charitable boxes that some families collect to pay for the calamities that befall any member of the family? And are such boxes permissible?
The Shaykh:
This is cooperative insurance. They collect it to help whoever among them is struck by a calamity. It is charity from them, and they do not get it back. They pay it as assistance, with no expectation of return. This is called cooperative insurance. There is nothing wrong with it. Each person pays a thousand, or a hundred, or two hundred, so that if one of them is struck by a calamity or misfortune, they help him and compensate him from this money, with no intention of getting it back. It is only assistance and donation. This is a form of cooperation, or to build a mosque, or a ribat, or other forms of good, or to give to a group of poor and needy people, or to buy books with it, or the like of that. Yes.
The questioner:
He asks: Is there zakah in it if it is prohibited?
The Shaykh:
No, there is no zakah in it, as long as they donated it as a donation. It is all for Allah, and there is no zakah in it. Yes.
Source
وجوب التفقه في الدين — islamhouse.com (58:26)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.