A woman asks: I had nine hundred riyals in my bag, five hundred of which was zakat for my gold, and all the money was stolen, including the zakat money.
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The questioner : May Allah reward you. This woman asks: I had nine hundred and fifty riyals in my bag, five hundred of which was zakat for her gold, and all the money was stolen, including the zakat money. What is required of her? May Allah reward you with good.
The Shaykh : She must pay the zakat a second time, because this money was stolen before it reached its rightful recipient, and it is obligatory for a person to deliver the zakat to its recipient. However, there is another question here: If a person gives you coins and says, “Pay this as zakat,” and you then put them in your pocket with your own coins, and they are stolen along with your coins, are you liable to compensate the person who gave them to you? No, you are not liable. Why? Because they were stolen without any aggression or negligence on your part. However, you must inform the owner and say, “The coins you gave me to distribute have been stolen,” so that he may look for zakat to pay on their behalf.
The Shaykh : She must pay the zakat a second time, because this money was stolen before it reached its rightful recipient, and it is obligatory for a person to deliver the zakat to its recipient. However, there is another question here: If a person gives you coins and says, “Pay this as zakat,” and you then put them in your pocket with your own coins, and they are stolen along with your coins, are you liable to compensate the person who gave them to you? No, you are not liable. Why? Because they were stolen without any aggression or negligence on your part. However, you must inform the owner and say, “The coins you gave me to distribute have been stolen,” so that he may look for zakat to pay on their behalf.