Someone sent this question: “As-salamu `Alaykum. Can Zakat Al-Fitr be paid for other than the poor and the needy? Secondly: do you consider the low-income families in North America as compatible with the definition of faqir and miskin in Islamic Shari`ah? I.e., if a family can live, eat and drink but with very limited resources, will it be eligible for Zakah?“
Muslims earnestly implore Allah to accept their fasting. Zakat Al-Fitr is meant to alleviate the pain of the poor and to cultivate a sense of brotherhood and solidarity among the Muslim community.
The principle is that Zakat Al-Fitr can be given to any of the eight categories to whom Zakat Al-Mal is given as mentioned in Verse 9:60. There is a view (the Malikites and Ibn Taymiyah from the Hanbalites, that it is only to the poor and needy.)
In practice, in our time of famine and hunger in many parts of the Muslim world, I would say that both Zakat Al-Fitr and Zakat Al-Mal should be given, as much as possible, to the poor and needy, especially those who are in poverty and foreign military occupation.
I would not consider such a family, as you described, deserving of Zakat Al-Fitr or Zakat Al-Mal. But I am fully aware that there are Muslim families who deserve it in America based on poverty.
Some families have trouble with immigration and because of that have trouble with working and earning and getting welfare support from the government, too.
Many of these may deserve under the title of poverty in America. We still must not deny the priority of people who are dying out of hunger or lack of medicine in many Muslim countries and those who are deprived of their resources by foreign military occupation.
Allah Almighty knows best.
