Purpose
The main purpose of Zakat al-Fitr is to provide the poor with a means with which they can celebrate the festival of breaking the fast (`Eid al-Fitr) along with the rest of the Muslims.
Every Muslim is required to pay Zakat al-Fitr at the conclusion of the month of Ramadan as a token of thankfulness to God for having enabled him or her to observe the obligatory fast. Its purpose is:
- As a levy on the fasting person. This is based on the hadith: The Prophet of Allah said, "The fasting of the month of fasting will be hanging between earth and heavens and it will not be raised up to the Divine Presence without paying the Zakat al-Fitr."
- To purify those who fast from any indecent act or speech and to help the poor and needy.
The latter view is based upon the hadith from Ibn `Abbas who related, “The Prophet of Allah enjoined Zakat al-Fitr on those who fast to shield them from any indecent act or speech, and for the purpose of providing food for the needy. It is accepted as Zakah for the one who pays it before the `Eid prayer, and it is sadaqah for the one who pays it after the prayer.”
Read more about this topic: Zakat Al-fitr
Famous quotes containing the word purpose:
“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse.... A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their own free choice—is often the means of their regeneration.”
—John Stuart Mill (1806–1873)
“In considering the policy to be adopted for suppressing the insurrection, I have been anxious and careful that the inevitable conflict for this purpose shall not degenerate into a violent and remorseless revolutionary struggle.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“I don’t like to be idle; in fact, I often feel somewhat guilty unless there is some purpose to what I am doing. But spending a few hours—or a few days—in the woods, swamps or alongside a stream has never seemed to me a waste of time.... I derive special benefit from a period of solitude.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)