The Ruling on Paying the Expiation for an Oath to a Relief Organization
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The questioner : A person says: He has an expiation for an oath due to him, so he bought ten cards from the cards for feeding fasting people, with the intention that this would suffice for feeding ten poor people. What is the ruling in this? May Allah benefit Islam and the Muslims through you?
The Shaykh : He bought them, and then what did he do with them? Did he feed them or eat them?
The questioner : He paid them, meaning for the purpose of relief. The objective of Al-Kawthar is that he pays for the relief.
The Shaykh : Yes, indeed. It is not permissible to pay the expiation for an oath to the relief organization, because they do not commit to giving it to ten people. However, yes, if they commit and say, "Give us the expiation and we will feed ten poor people," then there is no harm. But what we know is that they include this donation with general donations, and it is not known whether they will give it to ten, or to one, or to five; we do not know. For this reason, we say that a thing specified by a certain number should not be given to a charitable welfare organization or to the relief organization unless they commit and say, "What you gave us, we will distribute it to ten poor people." If they say that and they are trustworthy, then there is no harm. Otherwise, pay it yourself. Yes.
The Shaykh : He bought them, and then what did he do with them? Did he feed them or eat them?
The questioner : He paid them, meaning for the purpose of relief. The objective of Al-Kawthar is that he pays for the relief.
The Shaykh : Yes, indeed. It is not permissible to pay the expiation for an oath to the relief organization, because they do not commit to giving it to ten people. However, yes, if they commit and say, "Give us the expiation and we will feed ten poor people," then there is no harm. But what we know is that they include this donation with general donations, and it is not known whether they will give it to ten, or to one, or to five; we do not know. For this reason, we say that a thing specified by a certain number should not be given to a charitable welfare organization or to the relief organization unless they commit and say, "What you gave us, we will distribute it to ten poor people." If they say that and they are trustworthy, then there is no harm. Otherwise, pay it yourself. Yes.
Source
ابن العثيمين - جلسة رمضانية — archive.org (27:18)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.