As for those in bondage, their entitlement is expressed with fī (for), which indicates allocation within a category and does not require that they be given ownership. Thus, we may go to the master and say: “You have contracted with your slave for ten thousand, so here are ten thousand,” even if the slave is unaware of it.

Benefit: If we give a contracted slave money to pay off his manumission debt, then he becomes wealthy before making the payment, he must return the money to us.

His statement: “A Muslim captive may also be freed from it.”

The word asīr (captive) is in the form faʿīl with a passive meaning, just as jarīḥ means “wounded”; thus, asīr means “captured.”

Captivity may result from fighting, or from abduction—what is conventionally called kidnapping. Whoever is abducted is therefore a captive who may be freed using zakat.

However, the author stipulated that he must be Muslim. Thus, if a person under covenant or a dhimmi is captured, it is not permissible to give him zakat to secure his release, because his inviolability is lesser than that of a Muslim.

His statement: “A Muslim captive may also be freed from it.”

If someone were to say: This conflicts with the apparent meaning of the verse, since raqīq in Arabic refers to a slave, as in Allah’s saying: “then the freeing of a believing slave” [al-Nisaʾ 4:92]. How, then, may zakat be used to free a captive?

The answer is that those who consider this permissible have offered the following reasoning:

First: it fulfils his need, just as it fulfils the need of the poor person.