Those Closest to You Are Most Worthy

Who the receivers of zakāt are is a good question, and it is taken up below. Basically, zakāt is a local tax. It is not meant to go outside of the community. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: those closest to you are most worthy of your help. So the idea of acting locally is really important. If a person is fighting for the rights of the Tibetans while in his own community there are people oppressed, the Muslims would see that as a kind of disconnection. It does not mean that one is not sympathetic with something happening over there, but the thing is that one begins at home; one begins by cleaning up one's own home. So zakāt goes back to the wealth of the local community. If there is no one in that community who is impoverished or needs zakāt, then it will go outside of the community; and one first gives to one's relatives who are in need before giving to strangers.

Now, as to the recipients of zakāt: there are eight categories mentioned in the Qurʾān itself, and those are considered the only recipients of zakāt. One of the only non-Muslim groups are what are called al-muʾallafah qulūbuhum, which are people who are very close to Islam; they are very interested in Islam, they are close to Islam, and it is permissible to give those people zakāt money. If people are not Muslim, one can donate money to them, but one cannot give zakāt. Zakāt is the right of poor Muslims. In other words, the idea is that one takes care of one's own before going outside. But traditionally the Muslims did help others: in the early nineteenth century, during a famine in France, the Bey of Tunis and Algeria sent wheat to Europe to help relieve the famine. So traditionally the Muslims did have a concept of helping other peoples, if they had a surplus; but first one helps the people within one's own community.

There is also a beautiful story of Sayyidunā ʿUmar. Jewish and Christian and non-Muslim peoples — Buddhists and others — pay a tax to live under the Muslims. ʿUmar saw a Jewish man, an old man, begging, and he said: why is this man begging? He was told: he does not have any money. And ʿUmar said: we took money from him when he was young, so we should take care of him in his old age. And so he demanded that for Christians and Jews and other people, if they had no one within their community to take care of them, there should be money taken out of what is called the bayt al-māl, the collective bank of the Muslim government, to help those people. And it is interesting that during the time of ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz in Damascus, the government actually paid for and supplied people — not dogs, but people — to take care of blind people, as an employment. This is mentioned in the books.