No Zakat coupons for charities

JEDDAH: The Ministry of Labor and Social Development has banned charitable organizations across the Kingdom from receiving coupons or vouchers for Zakat Al-Fitr.
Sources close to the ministry told a local newspaper that the ministry has directed legally licensed charities to accept only cash and in-kind Zakat after the charitable societies requested the reception of the zakat and the distribution for the year 1437.
They expressed their hope that such charities would work on their behalf and distribute the Zakat to all of the needy families in the various provinces and villages of the Kingdom.
Qais Al-Mubarak, a member of the Council of Senior Scholars, said in an earlier fatwa that it is impermissible for the payer of zakat to buy money, medicines, food or clothes with the Zakat, or to give vouchers or coupons to the beneficiary so that they have to buy their commodities from specified stores.
“Zakat money is not simply charity money. It is designed to purify people's income sources and ask forgiveness from God the Almighty for their sins and to ask for atonement,” he said, explaining that alms and the other donations and gifts are given by a particular person to others sometimes out of sympathy, affection, friendship or even kinship, unlike the Zakat, which is all about the cleansing of sins.
The Ministry of Labor and Social Development oversees 686 charity societies of which 40 are for women, in addition to 121 other charities spread throughout the Kingdom. These charities offer activities and services to their beneficiaries, thus turning the beneficiaries into productive members in their communities.

The charities also extend health care programs to needy families and individuals, and rehabilitate the capabilities of the youth through training programs in a particular craft or profession to help them join the labor market.