Can Me and My Family Pay Our Zakat Together?

Answered by Ustadh Tabraze Azam

Question: Assalam alaykum

Should me and my child pay our zakat separately? Or can we pay it together?

Answer: Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullah,

Zakat is a personally obligatory duty. Hence, the basis is that each person would make their own payments.

However, it is possible for you to pay zakat on behalf of a spouse, child or another person by summing the total zakat assets owned [gold/silver/cash/trade goods] and then giving the relevant amount.

Note that paying zakat on behalf of somebody else does not necessitate that you need to take money from them. Rather, your paying on their behalf would count as akin to a gift to them which they subsequently used to make the zakat payment.

[Kasani, Bada‘i al-Sana‘i; Ibn ‘Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar ‘ala al-Durr al-Mukhtar (1.237)]

Please also see this answer.

And Allah Most High alone knows best.

wassalam,

[Ustadh] Tabraze Azam

Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Ustadh Tabraze Azam holds a BSc in Computer Science from the University of Leicester, where he also served as the President of the Islamic Society. He memorised the entire Qur’an in his hometown of Ipswich at the tender age of sixteen, and has since studied the Islamic Sciences in traditional settings in the UK, Jordan and Turkey. He is currently pursuing advanced studies in Jordan, where he is presently based with his family.