5 Pillars Made Plain
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Pillar 3: Who receives Zakat (Almsgiving)?
There are those who must pay Zakat (almsgiving) and those who are eligible to receive it. Sh. Abdullah Oduro covers both groups of people in this video, highlighting the mercy of Allah's wisdom in dispersing wealth.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. As-salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon you. I'm Abdullah Oduro and welcome back. Who is zakat obligatory upon? As we mentioned, the definition of zakat is the obligatory amount upon the surplus wealth once it has reached a certain threshold, whether time or amount. Well, looking, if you are an individual that fits that category, being that you have that surplus wealth and the time has elapsed on that surplus wealth, or you have a certain amount of a good or a commodity or of livestock that has reached a certain number, then you are an individual that it's obligatory upon you to pay zakat. If you are not of that category, then you will fall into the category of those that are zakat eligible, meaning that you are eligible to be a recipient of zakat. Allah says in chapter number nine, verse number 60, He gives all of the categories and there are roughly eight categories of people that receive zakat. The first of them are the poor, and this is what is termed as the fuqara, and then the needy, which are the masakeen. So the poor are the individuals that their situation doesn't even allow them. Some scholars even say they don't have enough for a day to where they have to ask individuals to receive some type of funding on a daily and even maybe weekly basis. And the masakeen are the ones that are needy. They are not at the level of the faqir, not at the level of the poor, but they are not at the capacity to have enough to suffice for themselves on a regular basis. wal-aamileen alayha Then Allah mentions the third category, and those are the ones that are employed to collect the zakat. During the time of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, he would summon certain individuals to go out in the neighboring lands and countries to collect the zakat from the Muslims around the world.
So these people are eligible to receive zakat also. When we look at our days now, the government, it's important for the government that they hire people to collect the zakat. Those people that collect zakat are eligible to receive the zakat. And then also here, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentions the fourth of them being the muallafat al-qulubuhum. Now this may even be in your category, being that you are a convert to Islam, is the person whose heart is inclined towards accepting Islam. So if it is someone that is a new Muslim and they are in need and they need help to that which will incline and bring their hearts closer to the deen, helping them financially in a certain situation, then they are zakat eligible. And after this, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentions the muallafat al-qulubuhum wa firriqabi. These slaves, during the time of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, the individuals that were prisoners of war would be taken in their homes and they would be treated as his servants. They would clothe them from their same clothing, they would feed them from the same food that they ate. These individuals, the person that is considered a servant or slave and wants to be freed from their master, then they can pay themselves off, pay their ransom to be paid off and to become free. They are zakat eligible. One can give zakat to that slave or servant to pay themselves off. What does this already mean? And also here, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala talks about the ones that are in debt. The individual that is in debt, that is in outstanding debt, such as someone that has a loan and they need to pay off their loan and they don't have enough money to do so, you can give your zakat money to that person to pay off their loan. Also, the individual that is in fee sabirillah, that Allah mentions in the path of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And primarily when talking about that, there are people that are go and fight, that fight in the sake of Islam and fight to protect Islam and Muslims. One is able to use their zakat and to pay to assist them in that.
Also, the one that is a traveler. The traveler, that is a person that is traveling from one destination to another, you are able to use your zakat money to help and fund those individuals to help them upon their journey. So these are the people that are eligible to receive zakat. And again, when we look at this, it's very important for us to, whenever we have the opportunity to ponder over what is called the sharia, or called the law, the system of Islam. You know, sharia comes from a body of water, linguistically. It is when channels of water come to a body of water. When looking at this sharia, when we look at zakat and ponder over it, subhanAllah, Allah was so descriptive to mention the types of people that receive this charity. Just ponder over that. How Allah mentions the types of people that are eligible for this obligatory amount. This should remind us that along with the timeframe that has been mentioned by the Prophet Muhammad peace and blessing be upon him, the commodities that zakat is for, that zakat is obligatory upon, what things that we own that are zakatable and those which are not. The amount. He mentions the types of people. And as a caveat, what's important that you will find in the paper regarding this is that subhanAllah, when we talk about the types of zakat, we want to mention that that which has an effort from you to where you have to put forth your money to maintain, such as crop yields. If you have to pay your money to make an irrigation system or that which irrigates the crop yields, you take a lesser amount of that, which is roughly 5%. But if it is an amount of crop yields that has been supplied by the rain, by what Allah has provided, you take 10%. Just a small example of how Allah is the all merciful and the all wise,
being this knowledge that he is displaying to us and obliging us based on his ultimate wisdom. Looking at these categories of zakat and when we pay, we should always remember the wisdom of Allah and his mercy behind this legislation. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make us of those that fulfill these terms of zakat. May he make us of those that take this into importance and don't take it for granted and make our love the love of him and this religion. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. Thank you.
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