Praise be to Allah and prayers and peace upon the Messenger of Allah, complete, perpetual, abundant prayers as long as the heavens and earth endure, and after:

I have not seen, after the Book of Allah and the hadith of His Prophet ﷺ, more truthful than the saying of Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) about the call of the Khawarij upon him: "Verily the judgment is only for Allah," with his statement: "A truth by which falsehood is intended!"

For we have known the scholars of today, except whom Allah has protected from a rare affliction tested in herself and her family, between one of two types: a type who sold himself to the sultan of his country and its tyrant, and they are the majority from the aspect that they reside in their countries, and their hypocrisy has no direction except the sultans of their countries.

And the second type, they are those who departed their countries seeking money, not knowledge, with certainty, except a rarity of whom Allah protected and had mercy upon. For Islamic knowledge, and spreading the call is sought in Muslim lands normally, except for one who had a legitimate necessity estimated by its measure!

And these proceeded upon another approach to serve their personal interests, like the first type, but with what suits the reality of the communities in which they live, and from whose "guidance" they sustain themselves, teaching it and issuing fatwas for it.

The matter here is that there is no possessor of sin or corrupter in the Sharia, except he has reasons and motives he places for himself, to justify for it, if there remains in him a remnant of conscience, or to shield himself with it from the criticism of the sincere ones, while he knows his lying and his departure from the correct guidance.

The obligation of Muslims today, especially those who decided for themselves to be free from their leaders, is to rid themselves of the disease of lowering their heads, and the feeling of weakness and humiliation!

And Allah is the guardian of success and guidance

Tariq Abdulhaleem

The purpose here is to respond to one of the fatwas that was issued by two bodies, which appointed themselves to be responsible for "fiqh" in North America, and to become a source of melting of Muslim communities in Western society, and developing the feeling of fraternal belonging between the Muslim and the disbeliever, and national brotherhood, and all that the extreme Murji'i thought represents of deterioration!

And the fatwa was issued concerning the permissibility of disbursing zakat to "electoral campaigns" for individuals from Christian politicians in the West, under the claim that they support the Palestinian cause or tend in their speech to support "minorities", including the Muslim, as they reckon!

And the fatwa is published in English, on the link

https://fiqhcouncil.org/zakat-for-political-campaigns/#b5c7cea1-8638-457a-b286-5e67fe207a4d-link

So we say and with Allah's success:

As for what came concerning the fay' and spoils after the battle of Hunayn, where the Messenger ﷺ gave from the fay' (spoils) of Hunayn to a number of Quraysh leaders and Arabs who were polytheists or new in Islam (those whose hearts were reconciled) to reconcile their hearts, and among the most prominent of them were Safwan ibn Umayyah (who was a polytheist at that time), and Abu Sufyan ibn Harb (new Muslim), and Suhail ibn Amr (new Muslim), and Hakim ibn Hizam (new Muslim), and Uyaynah ibn Husn al-Fazari (new Muslim), and al-Aqra' ibn Habis (converted to Islam after the Prophet ﷺ gifted him the fay').

From Ibn Shihab, he said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ raided the raid of the Conquest, the Conquest of Mecca, then the Messenger of Allah ﷺ went out with those with him from the Muslims, so they fought at Hunayn, so Allah gave victory to His religion and the Muslims, and the Messenger of Allah ﷺ gave on that day to Safwan ibn Umayyah one hundred from the camels, then one hundred, then one hundred. Ibn Shihab said: Saeed ibn al-Musayyib narrated to me that Safwan said: By Allah, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ gave me what he gave me while he was the most hated of people to me, so he did not cease giving me until he was the most beloved of people to me." Sahih Muslim

And what is extracted from this hadith, and from what came from the scholars of the Salaf, that the gift to that category was for specific purposes, limited by the majority of the Salaf and Khalaf[1] to four:

1. Strengthening the faith of the Muslim new in Islam
2. A man seen from him virtue and effort to support Islam until his conversion to Islam was hoped and the assumption was strengthened by that
3. Reconciling the hearts of disbelievers, whether their rich or their poor, to attract the interests of Muslims, with its conditions (meaning the interest)
4. Repelling the evil of disbelievers capable of bringing evil upon Muslims with its conditions

Abu Ja'far al-Nahhas said: "So upon this: the ruling in it is established, so if there is someone whose reconciliation is needed and it is feared that a calamity may afflict the Muslims from him, or his good conversion to Islam is hoped for afterward, it is given to him"[2]

And here one must stop and look at those purposes with extreme care and precise fiqh, from the aspect of the origin of the ruling and its basis, and today's reality equally.

The origin of the ruling is the disbursement of zakat to those categories where their conditions and bases fall, and from where the payer of zakat wishes to pay it.

Benefit: When the disbursement of zakat occurs on behalf of the individual, in a general collection, in which the intention of the individual himself is not evident, then the origin is to disburse it in what is apparent from the text upon it, without ijtihad in its authenticity or in specifying its forms, especially when some saw that that door, those whose hearts are reconciled, is closed originally. And the door is open in seven other doors for the expenditures. For the poor and the needy, and for the worker upon it, and for freeing slaves and the debtor, they are among the most apparent expenditures, upon which no one differs in their apparentness, even if the specific basis for determining the specific individual deserving may fall within it in ijtihad.

And we have seen in that fatwa that assumptions and ijtihads have followed one another, for this group to reach what they wanted of disbursing it to an infidel electoral campaign, based upon a law that contradicts Islamic law originally and in branches!

Then, if we move to what they justified that delusion with, we see them placing a sequential narrative in which ijtihads followed, each ijtihad built upon the ijtihad before it!

First: They chose an opinion from two opinions, either (1) that it be abrogated and its ruling fallen[3] as came from Malik and Abu Hanifa and al-Hasan and al-Sha'bi, or (2) and it is that the verse of Tawbah is still operative not abrogated, and it is a correct ijtihad from the aspect it has a strong support.

Second: Then since "these minorities are in circumstances (1) either that "require gaining the favor of that government such that it will care for their condition and protect their rights and freedoms," so they made ijtihad that gaining the favor of governments will require consideration of their condition and their rights and their care, or (2) in circumstances requiring the condition of their needy majority for money in the expenditure of the poor and needy and debtor, so they chose gaining the favor of governments! (ijtihad)

Third: That this spending from zakat money be for the purpose of "gaining the favor of governments" is (1) in the general interest of Muslims or (2) no interest in it, from the aspect that it is payment of money to an electoral campaign, which does not aim originally to aid Muslims, but has its own special political purposes, which may have in its context some useful statements for Muslims, and which they say within the framework of the campaign, and during their visit to Muslim institutions, not in their general speech, as they do with churches and Hindu temples and centers of secularism and other than that, there is in it only imagined interest not real, speculative not certain, temporary not permanent, so it does not fulfill the conditions of following the evidence of interest! So they chose the first (ijtihad).

Fourth: And this money can be (1) from their money as individuals signers of the fatwa, especially, or a da'wah directive to collect money for this specific purpose, or (2) that it be with a share from the zakat expenditure (the share of those whose hearts are reconciled)! So they chose (the share of those whose hearts are reconciled)! (ijtihad)

Fifth: And it is the most astonishing and most dangerous in matter, their choice (1) of the approach of disbursing zakat to Christian political electoral campaigns, to ward off the possibility of risks of the second choice which is that if (2) "we applied the rules with strict adherence to classical conditions (which, it must be noted, are to a large extent ijtihadi in nature also), then this will weaken the practical performance or the objectives of the Sharia for this category, and will make this category basically cancelled and void. Actually! So they chose "this expansion," according to their expression, "where legitimate ijtihad is justified, considering the changing times and circumstances in which we live." And they insisted upon the feeling of "some scholars committed to strict adherence to a madhhab of discomfort with this expansion" (ijtihad) to not make "this category basically cancelled and void. Actually!".

And the truth here is that in our present condition, and in our circumstances especially, those ijtihads are falsehood built upon falsehood, built upon falsehood, built upon falsehood, built upon truth, according to the sequence we established above[4]!

For gaining the favor of governments is by this method pure delusion with no basis for it! And what they pointed to that some lobbies actually gain the favor of governments, and influence them, do these writers think that money they donate from the zakat money of the poor will compete with the effect of AIPAC for example, or what the government of the little state of Emirates spends or what Ibn Salman pays to Trump!?

So this ijtihad is rejected and repudiated!

As for gaining the favor of governments, which are not, naturally, "a specific individual representative they spend upon him the money of Muslim poor," being in the general interest of Muslims. This is a determination based upon the fulfillment of the conditions of interest first, and it is built upon the known observed, and upon the history of politicians with Muslims, and upon the positions of governments with the major interests of Muslims. And it has been established with certainty and surety, tens, indeed hundreds of times, the failure of this approach, where the politician turns his head to the other side as soon as he exits from the mosque to which some of the humiliated weak invited him (and it is a matter forbidden in Sharia!), to beg some money, as a simple addition to his budget, nothing more and nothing less!

And I have resided more than forty years in the West, and knew the internals of its politics and the orientations of its politicians, and I have not seen any interest fulfilled for Muslims generally from any government that came in those countries! Did interest come from Justin Trudeau's government, for example, or Harper's government in Canada, or Clinton's government, or Bush or Obama, or Trump in the United States! Inform me with knowledge if you are truthful!

Just as I knew the gnawing disease in the bones of "Islamic" gatherings that seek to collect money, under the claim of "da'wah" while they feed their salaries and their trips from that money! And the scandals in this matter are known, I was informed of some of them personally in the nineties, and there is no power or strength except with Allah.

All this if we overlooked the concern for the principle of al-wala' wal-bara' (loyalty and disavowal), which they often sacrifice upon the idol of gaining the favor of governments! And what follows that from that aiding those campaigns is aiding for the majority of laws supporting what Islam does not approve, like homosexuality and changing the gender of children, and what is innumerable from enormities, and refuge is with Allah the Exalted. For they in this, whether they were pleased or refused!

And here Sheikh Muhammad Rashid Rida added a considerable dimension, he said in al-Manar, "Zakat is not given to apostates, nor to atheists and libertines"[5], and he meant by that Muslim libertines whose apostasy he sees by this, so how about libertines from the original disbelievers who became atheists and libertines, publicly in their political call!

Then, what is upon us from that category (those whose hearts are reconciled) being cancelled in this present reality!? And it had been non-operative in some eras of the Salaf when Muslims had power and control! And this is what does not cancel its existence, and does not establish its abrogation at all. So if the condition changes to a reality in which real, immediate, absolute influence is possible, upon the orientation of governments with the money of these poor, to bring interests of these poor especially, not for the sake of unspecified interests or interests for Muslims in other countries, except what was from the disposal of a specific individual, with his intention in that, or an institution that announced that from the expenditures of its zakat is this expenditure or that, without objection from its base, after the fulfillment of the conditions we mentioned as well, if the condition changes then there is no harm in the action itself, with guarantee of the principle of al-wala' wal-bara' and other conditions we mentioned.

And Abu Bakr al-Jassas supported this meaning in Ahkam al-Quran, so he said first: that entitlement is not except with poverty, originally, and the second that it is not from the obligation to give all the categories from zakat, if the origin of lifting poverty from Muslims is not fulfilled. He wrote:

"So he informed that the meaning by which all categories deserve is poverty; because it encompassed all charity, and he informed that it is directed to the poor, and this wording with what it included from | indication that the meaning deserving by it charity is poverty, and that its generality requires the permissibility of giving all charities to the poor until none other than them is given, rather the apparent wording requires the obligation of that; because of His saying ﷺ: «I have been commanded».

So if it is said: The worker deserves it not by poverty.

It is said to him: They were not taking it as charity, and rather the charity becomes for the poor then the worker takes it as compensation for his work not charity, like a poor person who was given charity and he gave it as compensation for work done for him, and as charity was given to Barira and she gave it as a gift to the Prophet, a gift for the Prophet, and charity for Barira.

So if it is said: So indeed those whose hearts are reconciled used to take it as charity, not by poverty.

It is said to him: They were not taking it as charity, and rather it used to become charity for the poor so some of it was paid to those whose hearts were reconciled; to repel their harm from the poor Muslims and so they would convert to Islam so they would be a strength for them, so they were not taking it as charity but it used to become charity and be directed in the interests of Muslims; since the money of the poor is permissible to direct it in some of their interests; since the Imam governs over them and acts in their interests)[6].

And on the occasion of conditions, those writers felt what is in the fatwa of severe defect and open gaps, so they placed conditions, which are, in general, what we mentioned here, so they returned upon their determination with invalidation in the reality of the matter!

And the summary[7]:

That this fatwa is void, rejected, it is not correct to act upon it, nor adopt it, nor is it permissible for any institution to pursue this approach that wastes the money of Muslims, in expenditures in which the original prohibition is established, and it is the illegitimacy of supporting the disbeliever in other than the face of humanitarian need on the individual level not the general political, for this is another matter.

And Allah is the guardian of success

Dr. Tariq Abdul Halim

1 Ramadan 1447

February 18, 2026

[1] This was said by al-Tabari in his Tafsir vol 14 p 316 Dar Ibn al-Jawzi edition, and al-Shawkani in Fath al-Qadir vol 4 p 231 Dar Ibn al-Jawzi edition, and al-Qurtubi in al-Jami' li-Ahkam al-Quran vol 10 p 266 Muassasat al-Risala edition, and al-Tahir Ibn Ashur in al-Tahrir wal-Tanwir vol 10 p 131

[2] Al-Bahr al-Muhit, Ibn Hayyan al-Andalusi vol 11 p 321, al-Risala al-Alamiyya edition

[3] Al-Tahrir wal-Tanwir, al-Tahir Ibn Ashur vol 10 p 131, Muassasat al-Tarikh edition

[4] And this construction that we saw, from a series of successive ijtihads, is it does not rise to the subject known as "analogy upon analogy" (or analogy upon the branch) in usul al-fiqh that it is making an incident whose ruling was established by analogy "an origin" to analogize upon it another incident, and concerning which the opinions of scholars divided into two main directions:

Prohibition (majority of usuliyyun): The majority of scholars see the impermissibility of analogy upon the branch, because "the branch" does not possess an independent ruling, but it is a follower of the origin stated upon. So if the reason is unified between the first branch and the new incident, the preferred approach is analogizing directly upon "the first origin" (the text or consensus) to avoid repeating the analogy and weakening it.

Permissibility with condition (some Shafi'is and Hanbalis): A group of scholars permitted that with the condition that the reason in "the branch analogized upon" is the same reason existing in "the first origin" without change, such that the second analogy is merely an extension of the first. So look, may Allah protect you, that the majority prohibited analogy upon the branch, meaning issuing a legal fatwa built upon a branch ruling, so what about one who issued it based upon accumulations of ijtihads!

[5] Tafsir al-Manar, Muhammad Rashid Rida, vol 10 p 596, Maktabat al-Qahira bil-Azhar edition

[6] Abu Bakr al-Jassas in Ahkam al-Quran, vol 7 p 173, Asfar edition

[7] And I reviewed a response to this fatwa that I responded to above, by a number of researchers (Dr. Deina Abdelkader, Dr. Zainab Alwani, Dr. Tamara Gray, Imam Yahya al-Hindi, Imam Mustafa Umar), its summary:

• The worship aspect of zakat – not exceeding the intention of the payer of zakat
• Absence of transparency and clarity in charitable institutional work in North America
• Impermissibility of using the general phenomenon of Islamophobia as justification to direct zakat money of specific expenditures in items not qualified in the case of peace under the claim of human rights and other social problems with minorities, but limits it to treating poverty and need
• Those whose hearts are reconciled assumes specific recipients, and reasonable expectation of near benefit, and absence of sufficient non-zakat alternatives. Where influence, persuasion, and legal reform are followed regularly through salaries, and grants, and alliances, and litigation, and charitable funding, substantially weakens claims of zakat-level necessity (darura). Zakat cannot be converted to permanent support for advocacy infrastructures without the collapse of a narrowly defined juristic exception into a general entitlement
• The justified fear from concerns of expansion in interpreting expenditures like "in the path of Allah (mosques), or those whose hearts are reconciled!
• The contemporary zakat scene in North America suffers, therefore, from two intertwined failures. The first is failure of legal restraint: dilution of the contextual character of zakat, flexible expansion of recipient categories, and excessive reliance on juristic permissibility divorced from applicative specificity. The second is failure of follow-up and transparent review: insufficient transparency, inadequate community oversight, and blurry boundaries between scholars, institutions, and beneficiaries
• Possibility of practicing any activities the jurists see as permissible to spend da'wah money on them, other than zakat money

Dr Tariq Abdelhaleem

1 Ramadan 1447

18 February 2026