Know Your Deen

Islamic QA for North America

July 16, 2019
by Ml. Muhammed Shoayb
2 Comments

Can zakat be given to pay fees

Q: Assalam O Alaikum,

Could you please tell me about- Can zakat be given to pay engineering college fees?

Please advise.

Thanks!
X

Jazak Allah Khair

A: Walaikumsalam,

I sincerely appreciate the question. In your inquiry, you do not specify if the Zakah money will be directly given to the institution or to the individual that qualifies to receive it. Zakah has to be given to an individual that qualifies for zakah or to an institution that will distribute as per rules of zakah.

Likewise, should the student qualify for zakah, by all means the person can be given the tuition amount to pay his fees.

The best option is to give it the student that qualifies to receive it, and have him/her pay their fees with it.

Allah Certainly Knows Best.

September 30, 2018
by Ml. Muhammed Shoayb
1 Comment

Please come prepared, Imam.

Q:  Selam Emam I came to both your tafsir programs. thank you for starting this activity. I might stop coming as you use teenage boy’s sexual language. I want to see some maturity at least in the mosque, most people who came first time did not come this time and you lost me by talking about kissing, first night out of context. Please check tafsir by ibn kathir. Your talk was not informational and lacked elegance. Please come prepared.

A:
Wa alaikumsalam,
I appreciate your feedback. Here are the original questions that were asked:

Person 1)

  • Is it ok to kiss the Quran after reading it?
  • Making it a habit or is that bidah.
Person 2) Is not kissing in itself bidah? I heard that the ways in which people kiss and greet is bidah and haraam. Especially in Middle East. So I read a fatwa that kissing is haraam. Also to not kiss is better in times of following non-Muslim ways. Correct? Jak

 

Answer: (paraphrasing my responses)

To the first set of questions: If a person kisses the Quran out of love and not due to believing it to be compulsory, such a kissing of the Quran would be permissible. Likewise, when the Quran falls and a person kisses it, such a kissing is linked to asking Allah (Subhanahu wa Ta’ala) for a forgiveness for having dropped the Quran. Such kissing of the Quran is allowed.

To the second question as far as any prohibition about kissing a human, a similar response would exist. As I said: No person states it is a must-do action. People have sores, etc. and therefore to insist that it take place is wrong. Likewise, to insist that it must occur between people is just as wrong. And in today’s time, it may prove better that before any kissing take place, people have blood tests, and this only applies to people who are married. Youth, and anyone not in a halaal relationship, should not even think about kissing.

I do not see an error in the responses. Since receiving your comment/question, I have asked people I know to be very honest with me about any shortcomings they see in me, my personality, and my performance, and they do not see any problems with my responses either.

If you would like to be the moderator who censors questions in future tafseer programs, I would be more than willing to share your name with the organizers who are part of promoting this event.

As a side note, Allah (Subhanahu wa Ta’ala) talks a lot about a lot of things. For the sake of anyone young, would you recommend that we eliminate ayaat of adultery, adult relations, divorce, menses, looking at the opposite gender and its rules, etc? If so, please do let us know, and we can re-frame things for you if necessary.  As far as Ibn Kathir goes, he is more detailed about all issues than our second tafseer, as you know from having read his thorough work.

I welcome anyone who attended to please share your thoughts.

Jazakallah