Can You Provide Full Conditions for Advance Zakat Payment?

Answered by Mawlana Ilyas Patel

Question

Can a person give zakat with the intention that the amount they are giving is zakat due either in the past, present, or future without specifying any particular year?  Regarding paying zakat in advance does one need to specify which year one is giving zakat for?

If one didn’t specify a particular year for their advance zakat payment, then if on the zakat anniversary, it transpires that they had given more than what was due, can this excess amount be used to offset zakat in the future?

Some Hanafi rulings concur with the latter, e.g. on dawateislami.net, nzf.org.uk & fatwa-tt.com. However, other websites state that excess zakat given in advance is sadaqa? Please clarify and provide full conditions for advance zakat payment

Answer

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate

I pray you are in good faith and health.

One has to specify the year one is giving its due zakat. If one doesn’t know the correct due zakat liability, then one can estimate and give it accordingly.

Conditions of Paying zakat in Advance:

• An intention has to be made at the time of separating the required amount from the rest of the wealth, like
• when one pays the zakat to the recipient, or
• when one gives the responsibility of paying it to an appointed agent, or
• setting it aside for the future.

The wealth of the payer has reached the threshold (nisab).

One has to ensure that on the zakat anniversary date, any advanced zakat equals the full zakat liability. Otherwise, one must settle the zakat balance and the deficit that remains outstanding. If one has given more then the excess is classed as sadaqa. However, if one intends it can also be considered advance payment for coming years. [Ibn ’Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar]

Check this link:
Is It Permissible to Give Zakat in Advance? – SeekersGuidance

Why not begin your search for knowledge by signing up for a course on SeekersAcademy (seekersguidance.org)

I pray this helps with your question.

[Mawlana] Ilyas Patel
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani             

Mawlana Ilyas Patel is a traditionally-trained scholar who has studied in the UK, India, Pakistan, Syria, Jordan, and Turkey.

He started his early education in the UK. He went on to complete hifz of the Quran in India, then enrolled into an Islamic seminary in the UK, where he studied the secular and Alimiyyah sciences. He then traveled to Karachi, Pakistan.

He has been an Imam in Rep of Ireland for a number of years. He has taught hifz of the Qur’an, Tajwid, Fiqh, and many other Islamic sciences to both children and adults onsite and online extensively in UK and Ireland. He was teaching at a local Islamic seminary for 12 years in the UK, where he was a librarian and a teacher of Islamic sciences.

He currently resides in the UK with his wife. His personal interest is the love of books and gardening.