Spending zakat on sadaqa jariya

Question

Zakat wealth is originally for helping the poor and needy: for this the Shari‘a has obliged the wealthy, the owners of the nisab, to give zakat according to the reckoning of the Shari‘a and thereby meet their needs. Now, is it permissible to spend zakat wealth on sadaqa jariya (ongoing charity) or not? For in it mostly the children of the poor study, and on roads and in inns it is spent on travellers and the like.

Answer

For discharging zakat it is necessary to make the entitled person an owner; without an owner, by mere permission (ibaha), zakat will not be discharged. A well, a road, a school, an elementary religious school do not have the capacity to become an owner; therefore, in spending on construction in these places, zakat has not been discharged.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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