Is there zakah on money whose receipt is not certain?
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Q: Your Eminence, Father Abdulaziz ibn Abdullah ibn Baz (may Allah preserve him), peace be upon you, and Allah’s mercy and blessings:
We inform you that we are employees at one of the oil companies in Saudi Arabia, and we were sent abroad for a period of three years. After our return from the assignment, five years later, we learned that we were owed housing allowances for the years of the assignment. We filed a complaint with the authorities, and we were in doubt about whether it would be paid to us. After one year from filing the complaint, it was paid, and praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds. Therefore, we ask Your Eminence to inform us:
Is there zakah on these dues? And if there is zakah, is the period from our return from the assignment until now, which is six years, or is it for only one year, which is the year we filed the complaint and received the dues at the end of it? Please inform us about this, may Allah reward you with good.
A: And upon you be peace, and Allah’s mercy and blessings, and after that:
If the reality is as you mentioned in the question, then there is no zakah on you; because this money is not certain to be received, so it is like a debt owed by an insolvent person, and the correct view is that zakah is not obligatory on it until its owner receives it and completes a new lunar year with it. So the money you mentioned has no zakah in it unless a lunar year passes after its receipt. May Allah guide everyone to what He is pleased with, and peace be upon you, and Allah’s mercy and blessings.
The General President of the Departments of Research
Scientific, Ifta, Da'wah, and Guidance
Abdul Aziz ibn Abdullah ibn Baz
We inform you that we are employees at one of the oil companies in Saudi Arabia, and we were sent abroad for a period of three years. After our return from the assignment, five years later, we learned that we were owed housing allowances for the years of the assignment. We filed a complaint with the authorities, and we were in doubt about whether it would be paid to us. After one year from filing the complaint, it was paid, and praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds. Therefore, we ask Your Eminence to inform us:
Is there zakah on these dues? And if there is zakah, is the period from our return from the assignment until now, which is six years, or is it for only one year, which is the year we filed the complaint and received the dues at the end of it? Please inform us about this, may Allah reward you with good.
A: And upon you be peace, and Allah’s mercy and blessings, and after that:
If the reality is as you mentioned in the question, then there is no zakah on you; because this money is not certain to be received, so it is like a debt owed by an insolvent person, and the correct view is that zakah is not obligatory on it until its owner receives it and completes a new lunar year with it. So the money you mentioned has no zakah in it unless a lunar year passes after its receipt. May Allah guide everyone to what He is pleased with, and peace be upon you, and Allah’s mercy and blessings.
The General President of the Departments of Research
Scientific, Ifta, Da'wah, and Guidance
Abdul Aziz ibn Abdullah ibn Baz
Source
binbaz.org.sa
The Arabic text is copied verbatim from the original source, without any edits.