What is distributed as zakat al-fitr is whatever food benefits the poor.
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The Shaykh : Which is more beneficial to the poor: rice, barley, dates, or raisins?
The questioner : Rice.
The Shaykh : Rice. You will all say rice, so it is the best. Rice is better than the others because it is more beneficial to the poor, and it is a type of food that is the prescribed category for zakat. You say dates.
The questioner : Yes...
The Shaykh : Dates are valid; they are eaten all the time, as I said. But not everyone eats dates. If you consider what people eat now, you will find that most of what they eat is rice. So there is nothing wrong with rice. Even if we were in a country where people subsist on corn, sorghum, or other foods, we would distribute that, because the hadith of Abu Sa'id says, "We used to distribute it as a sa' of food." It is very clear. There is a nuance here: I say that the things measured by the Shari'ah are sometimes measured by the recipient, sometimes by the payer, and sometimes by both the recipient and the payer. Pay attention, because a benefit depends on this.
The questioner : Rice.
The Shaykh : Rice. You will all say rice, so it is the best. Rice is better than the others because it is more beneficial to the poor, and it is a type of food that is the prescribed category for zakat. You say dates.
The questioner : Yes...
The Shaykh : Dates are valid; they are eaten all the time, as I said. But not everyone eats dates. If you consider what people eat now, you will find that most of what they eat is rice. So there is nothing wrong with rice. Even if we were in a country where people subsist on corn, sorghum, or other foods, we would distribute that, because the hadith of Abu Sa'id says, "We used to distribute it as a sa' of food." It is very clear. There is a nuance here: I say that the things measured by the Shari'ah are sometimes measured by the recipient, sometimes by the payer, and sometimes by both the recipient and the payer. Pay attention, because a benefit depends on this.