is a frequent, if not predominant, occurrence in these times. Zakat collectors take far more than is due in zakat on livestock, and likewise on trade goods. They take it from whoever holds the property, whether its owner, an agent, a partner, the manager of a profit-sharing partnership, or anyone else. If those entrusted with property were not credited with what is wrongfully taken from them, the resulting harm would be beyond anyone’s reckoning except the Lord of all servants.
Moreover, making such a payment may be obligatory to protect the property, since, if he did not pay it, the oppressors would take even more. It is well known that when someone entrusted with another’s property cannot avert a greater injustice except by paying part of what is demanded, he must do so, for safeguarding the property is obligatory. If this can only be accomplished by such a payment, then the payment becomes obligatory: whatever is indispensable to fulfilling an obligation is itself obligatory.
Furthermore, the opposing party concedes that if they compelled the person entrusted with the property to take property belonging to someone else, he would bear no liability. They also concede that if an unjust collector took more than was due from jointly owned property, the person entrusted with it would bear no liability. Their uncertainty arises only when the collector compels someone to pay on another’s behalf by whatever means, and he pays on that person’s behalf using funds borrowed on his account or someone’s money, intending to recover the amount from him.
They should therefore be asked:
What difference is there between compelling him to pay on that person’s behalf from his own funds and compelling him to pay from the absent person’s funds? Clearly, obliging him to pay on behalf of someone who is absent or refuses to pay causes him greater harm than making the payment from that absent or refusing person’s own property. Paying what is demanded of the absent person is easier for him than paying it from his own funds. Thus, if he is excused for what he