The answer: according to the established position of the school, it is not permissible. (1)

Shaykh al-Islam said: It is permissible, because the zakat is now of the same kind as the wealth. The wealth is presently a debt, and the zakat is likewise a debt—the very debt from which he has released him. Thus, he has not resorted to inferior property in order to give it away; rather, he has paid zakat from the same kind of wealth subject to zakat, namely, the debt. This is the correct view.

However, according to the stronger view—that zakat is not due on a debt owed by an insolvent person—this case does not arise, unless this poor person finds, at the end of the year, enough with which to settle his debt.

For example, the poor person owes forty thousand riyals but finds only thirty-nine thousand, and is therefore insolvent with respect to the remaining thousand. In this case, we might say that it is permissible to waive the zakat from the debt, though I have some reservation about this. For we would say: he has now received thirty-nine thousand riyals in cash, so let him pay the zakat from the wealth that has come to him.

If it is asked: This latter case involves neither taking nor giving, so how did you exclude it?

The answer is that they regarded it as being of the same kind as the wealth owed to him. Thus, although it does not involve taking and giving, it does involve financial assistance. Its form is this: if someone owes forty thousand riyals, and we hold that zakat is due on a debt even when it is owed by an insolvent person, then the matter is clear. This creditor must pay one thousand riyals each year on account of this debt. He therefore releases this debtor: in the first year, he releases him from one thousand riyals, intending it as zakat for what is owed to him; and in the second year