to them, hoping thereby to draw them into Islam. Then the verse was revealed: “Guidance of them is not your responsibility; Allah guides whom He wills. Whatever good you spend is for your own benefit; and you spend only seeking the Face of Allah. Whatever good you spend shall be repaid to you in full, and you shall not be wronged” (2:272). This verse, therefore, is of the same tenor as the one before it.

He next transmitted—through a sound chain—to Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib that “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ once gave a charity to a Jewish household, and that charity continued to reach them.” He also reported from al-Hasan al-Basrī: “The People under covenant (ahl al-dhimmah) have no share in anything obligatory, but if a man wishes he may give them from what is not obligatory.”

Such is what the Sacred Law establishes and what the early generations practiced. As for giving them Zakāt al-Fiṭr, we do not know of any Companion who ever did so, and to infer that from the verse is far-fetched—indeed, it imposes upon the verse what it cannot bear.

As for the narration of Abū Isḥāq from Abū Maysarah, who said: “They used to gather the zakāt of Fiṭr for him, and he would distribute it—or part of it—to the monks,” it was recorded by Abū ʿUbayd 613 / 1996 and Ibn Zanjawayh 1276. Besides being disconnected and halted at Abū Maysarah—whose name is ʿAmr ibn Shurāḥbīl—it is not authentic from him, for Abū Isḥāq al-Sabyʿī was prone to confusion, practiced tadlīs, and here reports it with an ʿanʿanah.

What further confirms that Zakāt al-Fiṭr is restricted to Muslims is the aforementioned hadith, “ … and as food for the poor,” for its apparent wording refers to the poor among the Muslims, not to the poor of all nations. Reflect on this.