What Are the Categories of Eligible Zakat Recipients?

Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch

Question

What are the categories of people to whom zakat can be given

Answer

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate

It is permissible to give zakat to any one or all of the following seven categories:

• The poor person-Any person who does not possess the minimum wealth is liable to pay zakat.
• The destitute person-One who has no wealth.
• The one appointed to collect zakat-They are given to the extent of their labor in collecting the zakat.
• The slave who has an agreement with their master (Mukatab)-For them to buy their freedom)
• The one in debt who does not possess the minimum amount of wealth liable to payment of zakat above their debts.
• Those in the way of Allah include those fighting in an Islamically sanctioned battle, the person on Pilgrimage (Haji), and some included students of Islamic knowledge.
• A traveler who is cut off from their wealth

Note that it is a condition for numbers 6 and 7 that they must also be poor. [Ibn ‘Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar]

Hope this helps
Allah knows best

[Shaykh] Yusuf Weltch
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Shaykh Yusuf Weltch is a teacher of Arabic, Islamic law, and spirituality. After accepting Islam in 2008, he then completed four years at the Darul Uloom seminary in New York where he studied Arabic and the traditional sciences. He then traveled to Tarim, Yemen, where he stayed for three years studying in Dar Al-Mustafa under some of the greatest scholars of our time, including Habib Umar Bin Hafiz, Habib Kadhim al-Saqqaf, and Shaykh Umar al-Khatib. In Tarim, Shaykh Yusuf completed the memorization of the Qur’an and studied beliefs, legal methodology, hadith methodology, Qur’anic exegesis, Islamic history, and a number of texts on spirituality. He joined the SeekersGuidance faculty in the summer of 2019.