Giving zakāh as food and fiṭrah in cash

Question

Assalam alaikum

1. Can zakat be given in the form of food or ration instead of cash/money? Is it permissible?

2. And also can Fitra be given in cash?

— Syed Mohsin Ahmed, Hyderabad, India

Answer

Wa `Alaykum al-Salām

1. A condition for the validity of zakāt is the transfer of ownership (tamlīk). As long as the ownership of an item of value is transferred to someone deserving of zakāt, the condition will be fulfilled. It is permissible that the ownership being transferred be that of food or ration (groceries), and thereupon, the recipient will be free to do as he or she pleases with those items after ownership has been transferred.

In support of this is the following excerpt of Bahār e Sharī`at:

اگر کھانا دے دیا کہ چاہے کھائے یا لے جائے تو ادا ہو گئی

“If food is given in that if he desires, he may consume it or take it [elsewhere], it (zakāt) will be valid.”

[Bahār e Sharī`at, Vol. 5, the Chapter of Zakāt and Fasting]

2. It is not only permissible to offer the ṣadaqah of fiṭr in the form of its monetary value (cash), but it has been deemed the superior form of this offering.

Sayyidunā Ṣadr al-Sharī`ah makes note of this as he writes:

گیہوں اور جو دینے سے ان کا آٹا دینا افضل ہے اور اس سے افضل یہ کہ قیمت دیدے... مگر گرانی میں خود ان کا دینا قیمت دینے سے افضل ہے

“To offer their flour is superior to offering [the grains of] wheat and barley, and more superior to that is that he offers their value… However, at the time of scarcity/inflation, to offer [the grains] themselves is superior to offering the value.”

[Bahār e Sharī`at, Vol. 5, the Chapter of Ṣadaqah al-Fiṭr]

And Allāh knows best.

May he be pardoned

Faqīr Sayyid `Abdul Ṣamad al-Qādirī · Shawwāl 14,1445

Verified by Muftī Zāhid Ḥussain al-Qādirī