Question: With regard to Zakat al-Fiṭr, when we buy the grain from merchants we often find many needy people sitting and asking for a share, so we distribute it among them. Yet some of them do not receive a full ṣāʿ. Is it required that the food given to each poor person be no less than one ṣāʿ, or is it permissible to give him less?

Answer: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ made Zakat al-Fiṭr obligatory as one ṣāʿ (roughly 2.5–3 kg) of wheat or its equivalent in staple foods. The giver may hand that ṣāʿ to a single individual or divide it among several people; what matters is that the giver himself sets aside a complete ṣāʿ. As for the recipients, there is no harm if several of them share the charity that one person has offered.

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The Best Fasting after Ramadan

Question: What is the most virtuous fasting after the fast of Ramadan?

Answer: The most virtuous fasting after Ramadan, as the Prophet ﷺ said, is: “The best fasting after the month of Ramadan is in the month of Allah that you call Muḥarram.” In addition, fasting on Mondays and Thursdays, and on three days of every month, counts among the voluntary fasts, as does fasting on the Day of ʿArafah, on the Day of ʿĀshūrāʾ, and fasting a day before or a day after it. It is also reported that the Messenger ﷺ fasted during Shaʿbān, although the whole month is not to be fasted in its entirety.