return it to the zakat-payer, then we hope that the money has taken its proper course and reached its intended recipients, if Allah wills. Allah is the One who grants success.

Question: What if the owner of the wealth regarded that sum as permissible for me and expressly allowed me to take it?
Answer: Zakat is not the personal right of the owner of the wealth.

Paying a Deceased Person’s Debt with Zakat
Question: A person passed away while owing a debt and left nothing with which to settle it. May that debt be paid from zakat funds or not?
Answer: Undoubtedly, settling the debt of a deceased person is legislated; it is an act of kindness toward him, a release from his pledge, and a clearing of his liability. In the early days of Islam, whenever the Prophet ﷺ was brought a deceased person for the funeral prayer, he would ask, “Does he have any debt?” If he was informed that the deceased owed a debt, he would refrain from leading the prayer and say, “Pray over your companion.” On some occasions, a Companion would take responsibility for the dead man’s debt, and the Prophet ﷺ would then offer the prayer, urge that Companion to pay the debt he had undertaken until he did so, and supplicate for him, saying, “Now his skin has become cool,” meaning the deceased’s.

Later, when Allah expanded the Prophet’s ﷺ means, he began to assume the debts of those deceased who had left no assets and would perform the funeral prayer for them. This shows the legitimacy of paying off a deceased person’s debt.

As for settling that debt from zakat funds, the scholars differ on the matter, because Allah, Exalted be He,