carrying it out and seeing that every rightful claimant receives what is due to him.
Second: Maintain the existing arrangement of appointing appraisal committees (khars) for those crops and fruits on which zakat is obligatory, and of collecting and distributing the zakat due on them.
Third: There is no objection to sufficing with local committees that would themselves handle appraisal, collection, and distribution of zakat.
Fourth: With regard to taking zakat in cash, the basic rule is that it should be paid in kind, from the very wealth itself, as the revealed texts indicate. However, the Council—by majority opinion—permits payment of the cash equivalent when it would be difficult for the owner to give it in kind and so long as this causes no harm to the poor.
Benefits
-
It is unlawful for the zakat-payer to buy back the zakat or charity he has given, and any such purchase is invalid even if he buys it from someone other than the initial recipient. ʿUmar narrated: “I had donated a horse in the path of Allah, and later I wished to buy it. The Prophet ﷺ said, ‘Do not buy it, and do not take back your charity; for one who takes back his charity is like one who returns to his vomit.’” [al-Bukhari 1419; Muslim 1620].
-
Each variety of fruit and grain is assessed separately. Thus, for dates one pays, for example, on the Sukkary variety, on the Barni variety, on the Shaqr variety, and so forth; likewise, for wheat one pays on each kind, such as the Luqaymi, and so on. If he gives from the average quality within a single variety, that suffices.
Al-Muwaffaq and others preferred that the produce be pooled and the zakat paid from a level mid-way between the highest and the lowest qualities, because assessing every item on its own entails hardship, and the Law has lifted hardship and constraint. Yet if he pays from the best quality, that is more complete and more virtuous, as the Almighty says: “You will never attain righteousness until you spend out of that which you love” (Quran 3:92), and He says: “O you who believe…"