Zakat al-Fitra in the Noble Sunna
1- It is narrated that Imam al-Sadiq (a) said: “The fitra is obligatory upon everyone upon whom zakah is obligatory.”
2- The Imam, the Commander of the Faithful (a), said in the ʿId sermon on the day of al-Fitr: “Pay your fitra, for it is the Sunna of your Prophet and an obligatory duty from your Lord. So let every man among you pay it on behalf of all his dependents: their male and their female, their young and their old, their free and their slave—on behalf of every person among them, a saʿ of dates, or a saʿ of wheat, or a saʿ of barley.”
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3- Ibrahim ibn Muhammad al-Hamdani said: The narrations differed concerning the fitra, so I wrote to Abu al-Hasan, Sahib al-ʿAskar (a), asking him about that, and he wrote: “The fitra is a saʿ of the staple food of your land: upon the people of Mecca, Yemen, al-Taʾif, the outlying parts of al-Sham, al-Yamama, Bahrain, the two Iraqs, Fars, al-Ahwaz and Kirman—dates; upon the people of central al-Sham—raisins; upon the people of al-Jazira, Mosul and al-Jibal, all of them—wheat or barley; upon the people of Tabaristan—rice; upon the people of Khurasan—wheat, except the people of Marw and al-Rayy, upon whom are raisins; upon the people of Egypt—wheat; and whoever is other than these, upon them is whatever predominates as their staple food; and whoever of the Bedouin Arabs dwells in the deserts, upon them is dried curd; and the fitra is upon you and upon all people.. ”
4- Zurara ibn Aʿyan narrated from Imam al-Sadiq (a), concerning a man who took out his fitra and set it aside until he could find people deserving of it, that he said: “If he has taken it out of his liability, then he is discharged; otherwise he is liable for it until he delivers it to its rightful owners.”
Rulings of Zakat al-Fitra
The Obligation of the Fitra
1- Zakat al-fitra is obligatory every year by the consensus of the Muslims, and that is after the end of the month of fasting, according to the details to follow.
2- Because zakat al-fitra is one of the acts of worship, the intention of seeking nearness to Allah, Almighty, is obligatory in it, as is the case with the zakah on wealth.
3- The fitra is obligatory upon everyone who, at sunset on the eve of ʿId al-Fitr, is mature, sane, free (that is, not owned by anyone), rich, and conscious (not unconscious)—according to the well-known (mashhūr) view regarding the last two—and the individual gives the fitra on behalf of himself and on behalf of those whom he supports, as will follow.
4- The fitra is not obligatory in the property of a child or of an insane person; rather, it is obligatory upon whoever provides for them. If the guardian of the child or of the insane person provides for them from their own property, then their fitra is obligatory neither upon him nor upon them. As for one who is unconscious at the crescent of Shawwal, the precaution of giving the fitra from his property is not to be abandoned.
5- The poor person upon whom the fitra is not obligatory is the one who is unable to secure his livelihood and the livelihood of his dependents, according to his social standing and his needs, for a full year. Whoever is like that, the obligation of zakat al-fitra falls from him; rather, he is entitled to take it, by virtue of being poor. The detailed discussion of the poor person has already passed in explaining the recipients of zakah.
6- The basis for the obligation of zakat al-fitra is that sunset on the eve of ʿId al-Fitr comes upon the person while he fulfills the stated conditions. So if he was rich but became poor shortly before sunset on the eve of ʿId, the zakah falls from him. And if the boy reaches maturity, or the insane person recovers, a little before sunset, it becomes obligatory upon him.
7- If the legally responsible person (mukallaf) dies before sunset on the eve of ʿId, nothing is obligatory upon him in his estate; but if he dies after sunset, it is obligatory to take out his fitra and the fitra of his dependents from his estate.
Its Amount and Kind
8- It is obligatory for the mukallaf to pay the fitra on behalf of himself and on behalf of every member of his family whom he supports. The amount of the fitra is one saʿ (about three kilograms) of wheat, barley, rice, dates, raisins, corn or other foods.
By obligatory precaution, one should choose the predominant staple food of the people of the land in which the mukallaf lives. By recommended precaution, one should choose one of the four crops (wheat, barley, dates and raisins) if it is a predominant staple food of the land.
9- The mukallaf may pay the food itself to the poor person, or pay its value. If he chooses to pay the value, the more cautious position is to confine himself to current money; accordingly, as a precaution, he does not give another kind under the heading of value. (So he does not pay a garment, for example, at the value of a saʿ of food).
10- It is obligatory that the food which the mukallaf pays be sound; defective or spoiled food does not suffice. It is also a condition that it be free of admixtures such as dust and the like, unless the pure part of it amounts to a saʿ, or [the admixture] is slight, of what is customarily tolerated.
11- Whoever owes the fitra of several persons is not obliged to pay the fitra of all of them from a single kind; rather, he may pay, for example, wheat or its value on behalf of some, and rice or its value on behalf of others, and so on.
Its Time
12- The time of the obligation of the fitra is the eve of ʿId, when the stated conditions are met, until midday (zawāl) of the day of ʿId for one who has not prayed the ʿId prayer. If he wants to pray the ʿId prayer, the more cautious position is to take it out before the prayer. If he delays that, then, if he had set it aside, he pays it with the intention of the fitra; otherwise, by obligatory precaution, he pays it as well, without intending it as timely performance (adāʾ) or as making up (qaḍāʾ).
13- The fitra is not paid in advance before the month of Ramadan; as for during it, paying it in advance is permissible according to the more apparent view, and precaution is to pay it at its time.
Setting Aside and Transferring
14- The mukallaf may set it aside at its time (in kind or in value) and then pay it to the poor person later, if he is not able to pay it to him at its time. The intention takes place upon setting it aside, and the more cautious position is to renew it upon giving it to the poor person.
15- By obligatory precaution, zakat al-fitra is not to be transferred from one's own land to another land, except where there is no one entitled to it, or where it is transferred to the jurist (faqīh).
16- If he sets aside the fitra and delays paying it to the one entitled, and it perishes during this period: if the delay was because it was not possible to pay it to the one entitled, he is not liable; but if the delay occurred while payment was possible, he is liable and must pay a replacement in the event of its loss.
The Fitra of Dependents and of the Guest
17- It is obligatory for the mukallaf to pay the fitra on behalf of himself and on behalf of everyone who is considered his dependent at the onset of the eve of ʿId al-Fitr, whether young or old, Muslim or unbeliever, one whose maintenance is obligatory upon him or not, from among relatives and kin or others, free or slave, and whether living with the giver and in his land or not (like a person's son who studies in another land but is still a dependent of his father).
18- The fitra is obligatory upon the host on behalf of his guest who comes to stay with him before the eve of ʿId, with his consent, and whose stay continues until the onset of the crescent of Shawwal, on condition that it can truly be said of him that he supports him, such as his stay with him being a sufficient period before the eve of ʿId or after it. By recommended precaution, one pays the fitra of the guest who is with him on the eve of ʿId in all cases. As for the guest who comes to him after sunset on the eve of ʿId, his fitra is not obligatory upon the host, even if he had been invited before that.
19- As for the wife whose husband does not provide for her: if someone else supports her, her fitra is obligatory upon the supporter; and if no one provides for her, the fitra is obligatory upon her if she is rich.
20- It is not obligatory to pay the fitra on behalf of the fetus unless it is born before sunset on the eve of ʿId. As for the suckling infant, its fitra is upon its father if he provides for the woman who nurses it (whether she is the mother or another); but if the one providing for the nursing woman is other than the father, the infant's fitra is upon the provider; and if the provision for the nursing woman is made from the infant's own property, the fitra falls from him.
21- The revocably divorced woman: if she is still under the husband's support, her fitra is upon him; otherwise, not.
22- If the supporter is poor and the supported person is rich, the stronger view is that zakat al-fitra is obligatory upon the supported person himself.
23- It is not a condition for the obligation of zakat al-fitra that the provision for the dependents be from lawful property; rather, if he provides for them from what is forbidden, such as usurped property for example, their fitra is likewise obligatory upon him.
24- Whoever's fitra is obligatory upon another (such as the wife, the children and the guest), it is obligatory upon him, as a precaution, to pay the fitra on his own behalf if the one upon whom it was obligatory does not pay it, out of disobedience or forgetfulness.
25- Whoever owes the fitra of another (such as the host with respect to the guest, and the head of a household with respect to his family), the obligation does not fall from him, by way of precaution, if the other pays the zakah on his own behalf by himself—unless it is with the intention of volunteering it on behalf of the one upon whom it is obligatory and with his permission, as a precaution.
The Fitra of the Hired Worker
26- Whoever hires a person to work for him and stipulates within the contract that he will provide for him, his fitra is obligatory upon him; but if he stipulates that he will pay him a specific wage from which he provides for himself, the fitra is not obligatory upon the employer. The criterion is that it can truly be said, by custom, of the hired worker that he has become a dependent of the one who hired him.
Disbursement of the Fitra
27- It is permissible to spend zakat al-fitra on the eight categories of recipients of the zakah on wealth that were mentioned before, but the more cautious position is to confine its disbursement to the poor and the needy among the believers. It is also permissible to spend it on the children of poor believers or to transfer its ownership to them.
28- Justness (ʿadāla) is not a condition in the poor person to whom the fitra is given, but the more cautious position is not to give it to a drinker of wine or to one who sins openly; likewise, it is not permissible to pay the fitra to one who spends it in sin.
29- The fitra of a non-Hashimi is not given to a Hashimi, as is the case with the zakah on wealth; as for the fitra of a Hashimi, it is lawful for a Hashimi and for others.
30- The more cautious position is not to give a single poor person less than a saʿ of food (three kilograms), but it is permissible to give him more than that.
31- If a person claims poverty, he is not given zakat al-fitra except with knowledge of his previous poverty, or with a presumption arising of his truthfulness through the outward appearance of his condition, or through the testimony of one whose word on that can be relied upon.
The Recommended Practices of the Fitra
32- It is recommended for the poor person to pay zakat al-fitra as well. If he has a family and wants to pay the fitra on their behalf too, but is not able to pay more than one saʿ, he first pays it on his own behalf, with the intention of the fitra, to one of the members of the family; then the recipient pays it, with the intention of the fitra on his own behalf, to the third, and so on, until the last one pays it to a poor person outside the family.
33- In giving the fitra, it is recommended to give precedence to the poor among relatives, then the poor among neighbors, then the poor among the people of knowledge and virtue; and if there are other grounds for preference, it is recommended to give precedence on their basis.
34- It is recommended to pay the fitra on behalf of a child born between sunset on the eve of ʿId and before midday (zawal) on the day of ʿId.
35- Likewise, payment is recommended if the boy reaches maturity, or the insane person recovers, or the unbeliever embraces Islam, between sunset on the eve of ʿId and before midday on ʿId.
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