What is the ruling on giving zakah to relatives while you eat with them?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : Your Eminence, what is the ruling on one who gives his zakah to some of his relatives, even though he visits them along with his children and his wife!
The Shaykh : But?
The questioner : But he visits them, eats at their place, and drinks with them, and perhaps his zakah ends up in the food he ate. Is there any blame on him for that?
The Shaykh : There is no blame on him. That is to say, if you give your zakah to a person who is eligible for it, whether he is a relative or not, and then he invites you, or you go to him and drink from what he drinks and eat from what he eats, there is nothing wrong with that. This is because he owns it, and you partook of it by way of an invitation, a gift, or something similar. Even if we assume that he gave it to you as a gift for some occasion, there is nothing wrong with that. The prohibited thing is to buy it from him, because if you gave him your zakah and then went to buy it from him, the most likely outcome is that he will lower the price for you, since you are the one who did him a favor. If he lowers the price for you, it means that some of your zakah has returned to you through this concession. Do you understand?
The questioner : Yes.
The Shaykh : But?
The questioner : But he visits them, eats at their place, and drinks with them, and perhaps his zakah ends up in the food he ate. Is there any blame on him for that?
The Shaykh : There is no blame on him. That is to say, if you give your zakah to a person who is eligible for it, whether he is a relative or not, and then he invites you, or you go to him and drink from what he drinks and eat from what he eats, there is nothing wrong with that. This is because he owns it, and you partook of it by way of an invitation, a gift, or something similar. Even if we assume that he gave it to you as a gift for some occasion, there is nothing wrong with that. The prohibited thing is to buy it from him, because if you gave him your zakah and then went to buy it from him, the most likely outcome is that he will lower the price for you, since you are the one who did him a favor. If he lowers the price for you, it means that some of your zakah has returned to you through this concession. Do you understand?
The questioner : Yes.