Qaida fi Ikhraj al-Zakat ala al-Fawr
- Author died
- 795 AH
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- Al-Fārūq al-Ḥadīthah lil-Ṭibā‘ah wal-Nashr
Qaida fi Ikhraj al-Zakat ala al-Fawr (Rule Regarding the Immediate Payment of Zakat) is a short legal treatise by the Hanbali jurist Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali (736–795 AH / 1335–1395 CE) examining the legal obligation of disbursing zakat immediately upon its becoming due .
Content and Legal Arguments
Ibn Rajab opens the treatise by stating that Hanbali scholars explicitly affirmed that zakat must be paid immediately (ala al-fawr), a ruling supported by the transmitted statements of Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal . He cites several narrations of Ahmad's legal responses:
- Narrated by Ja'far ibn Muhammad, Ibn Hani', Salih, and Abu Dawud, affirming that once zakat is due, it must be paid in full without delay or negligence .
- Narrated by Bakr ibn Muhammad and al-Athram, stating that distributing zakat gradually in small installments after the completion of the zakat year (al-hawl) is forbidden, because one cannot be safe from unforeseen mishaps (hadathan al-dahr), whereas advancing payments gradually before the year ends is permissible .
- Responses regarding whether a person who provides monthly stipends to relatives may pay them from zakat, noting that zakat cannot be used as a means to shield one's own wealth from customary financial support .
Ibn Rajab then explores legal branches related to postponing zakat, such as delaying payment to seek out more severely impoverished recipients, waiting for a virtuous time or month when charity is multiplied, or transferring funds to distant relatives in dire need . He examines the statement attributed to Caliph Uthman ibn Affan—"This is the month of your zakat" (هذا شهر زكاتكم)—which Ahmad found problematic to explain . Drawing on Abu Ya'la and Abu Ubayd al-Qasim ibn Sallam's Kitab al-Amwal, Ibn Rajab discusses whether Uthman referred to Ramadan or Muharram, and analyzes whether the statement concerned the ruler dispatching zakat collectors at the start of the year or the voluntary advancement of payment . He also addresses a report claiming that the Prophet's Companions disbursed zakat in Sha'ban to assist the poor for Ramadan, concluding that its transmission chain contains multiple weak narrators .
Juristic Differences and Conclusion
The treatise reviews the broader positions across legal schools:
- Maymun ibn Mihran held that an individual has up to one month to distribute zakat after the year ends .
- Hanbali jurists permitted a minor delay without defining a fixed timeframe .
- Malik ibn Anas, Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi'i, and Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Shaybani held that immediate payment is obligatory .
- Abu Yusuf held that immediate disbursement is not obligatory unless demanded by the ruler, a viewpoint connected to Hanafi rulings regarding the forfeiture of zakat liability upon the destruction of wealth .
Manuscript and Publication
The work is preserved in a single known manuscript appended to the end of Ibn Rajab's Ahkam al-Khawatim within a collective codex (majmu') at the Egyptian National Library (Dar al-Kutub al-Misriyya, No. 79 Fiqh Hanbali) . Copied in standard Naskh script over three and a half folios (17–18 lines per page), it was transcribed directly from the author's autograph, concluding with the note: "The last of what was found from the author's handwriting" (آخر ما وجد من خط المؤلف) . A microfilm copy is held at King Saud University Central Library, and the text was edited by al-Walid Al Faryan and included in published compilations of Ibn Rajab's treatises .
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