If the traveler is already on his way to the town he intends, he is to be given enough to reach that destination and to cover his return home. Under the heading of ibn al-sabīl (the stranded traveler) the guest is also included, as Ibn ʿAbbās and others have stated. Should any surplus of what they received from the zakāt remain with the wayfarer, the combatant in Allah’s cause, the debtor, or the mukātib—the slave purchasing his own freedom—they must return the excess. What they are given is not theirs by absolute ownership; it is a conditional possession, limited to the extent of the need and the very cause for which it was granted. When that cause disappears, the entitlement disappears with it.

Know, moreover, that it is permissible to allocate the entire zakāt to a single class among the eight designated categories. The Almighty says: “But if you conceal it and give it to the poor, that is better for you” (Q 2:271). Likewise, in the ḥadīth of Muʿādh when the Prophet ﷺ sent him to Yemen, he said: “Teach them that Allah has made obligatory upon them a charity to be taken from their rich and returned to their poor” (agreed upon). Because both the verse and the ḥadīth mention only one class, they show that directing the whole zakāt to that single class is permissible.

It is also sufficient to give it to a single individual. The Prophet ﷺ instructed the clan of Banū Zurayq to hand their charity to Salamah ibn Ṣakhr, a report narrated by Aḥmad. He likewise said to Qabīṣah: “Stay here, Qabīṣah, until the charity comes to us; then we shall allocate some of it for you.” Both narrations demonstrate the lawfulness of limiting the distribution to one person drawn from any of the eight categories.