Once you know your zakāh is due, this is the ruling on where it goes.

THE OTHER HALF OF ZAKĀH. Most of a Muslim's zakāh anxiety is about the SUM: what counts, what the niṣāb is, whether this account or that asset is liable. The corpus already anchors that side — Res 1 on zakāh on debts, Res 15 on investing zakāh funds, Res 27 on the Solidarity Fund, Res 143 on restricted accounts. But once the amount is known, a second question opens that those rulings do not answer: where does it actually go, and how? Resolution No. 165 (3/18) 'Enhancing the Role of Zakāh in Poverty Alleviation and the Management of its Collection and Distribution based on Fiqh Interpretations (Ijtihād)' is the OIC Fiqh Academy's settled answer to the DISTRIBUTION side. It 'Resolves' across five heads, First to Fifth, and it is the missing companion to Res 15: Res 15 lets a zakāh fund be invested, Res 165 governs to whom and how the whole estate of zakāh is delivered.

NEW WEALTH IS STILL JUDGED. The Academy opens by refusing to freeze the zakāh base in its classical list: 'Assets, not explicitly mentioned in the original Islamic texts, are subject to Ijtihad in regard to being Zakāh-liable or not provided such Ijtihād fulfils the Shariah conditions and criteria.' A modern portfolio, a business, an income stream the early books never named can still be assessed for zakāh — the door of interpretation is open, but disciplined by the Shariah's own conditions.

YOU NEED NOT SPREAD IT ACROSS ALL EIGHT. A recurring worry for the individual payer — must my zakāh touch every one of the eight Qur'anic categories? — is settled plainly: 'The Zakāh payer is not required to cover all the eight categories of Zakāh recipients when he distributes the due Zakāh.' The duty to reach across the whole spectrum falls on the collective body, not the individual: 'If, instead, a competent authority is to perform distribution, it should cater for all the eight categories of recipients, provided that funds are available, need exists, and the eight categories of recipients are accessible.' An individual may give his whole zakāh to the poor; an institution holding the community's zakāh carries the wider mandate.

WHEN A DELAY IS ALLOWED. The default is speed: 'In principle, Zakāh should be distributed as soon as it is due or collected.' But the Academy names the exceptions rather than leaving them to guesswork — 'it is permissible to delay its distribution when it is necessary for public interest, or to reach a poor relative, or when Zakāh is distributed periodically to respond to the repetitive needs of the incapable of earning poor.' A standing institution that pays a stipend in instalments to those who cannot earn is not violating the promptness rule; it is exercising a named permission.

WHAT THE POOR ARE ACTUALLY OWED. Here the resolution sets a SUFFICIENCY standard, not a token: 'The poor and needy (al-Fuqarā wa al-Masākīn) should be given an amount that satisfies their needs and their dependents if possible and brings them up to an adequate level of living as perceived by the Zakāh authority.' The aim is not a handout that keeps someone poor but an amount that lifts them to a decent life. And where the recipient can work, zakāh is allowed to fund the ESCAPE from poverty, not merely relief within it: 'If the poor or needy can earn income through a certain handicraft or profession, he may be given the amount he needs to, for instance, purchase his work tools, run a small commercial business or acquire a small family farm, and thus becomes able to have a continuous flow of income to cover his needs.'

ZAKĀH AS SEED CAPITAL. This is the head that connects zakāh to the site's whole riba-free-livelihood thesis. The Academy permits zakāh to build productive assets the poor themselves own: 'Zakāh funds can be invested in small projects such as textile units, small sewing projects, and small workshops to be directly owned by the poor and needy.' And it ties this to the corpus's existing Res 15: 'Zakāh funds can also be used for establishing income-producing and services projects as stated in resolution no. 15 (3/3) of the Academy.' Charity here is allowed to become capital — the interest-free route out of dependence rather than a rope that keeps someone tethered to it.

THE MODERN ZAKĀH INSTITUTION IS A TRUSTEE. Res 165's most consequential contemporary move is to characterise the collecting institution the way the Academy characterises a muḍārib elsewhere in the corpus (Res 123, Res 212): as a TRUSTEE, not a guarantor. 'The institutions entrusted with Zakāh collection and distributions are considered as trustees and, therefore, they should not guarantee Zakāh funds against loss except in case of infringement or negligence.' The payer's obligation is discharged the moment he hands it over correctly: 'The Zakāh payer also becomes free from any duty towards the Zakāh amount once he pays it to the authorized Zakāh institution.' And the institution must be structurally clean: 'The Zakāh institution should enjoy financial and administrative autonomy from all other government bodies and be subjected to supervision and control to ensure transparency and adherence to administrative and financial good governance guidelines.' A zakāh body that a treasury can raid, or that answers to no audit, fails the Academy's own test.

THE REMAINING CATEGORIES, READ FOR TODAY. The Fifth head walks the other recipient categories into the present. Among the indebted (al-Ghārimīn): 'The Zakāh share for indebted persons includes those who incurred debts for their own needs and affairs as well as those who incurred debts for spending on dispute solving within Shariah criteria' — a direct line to anyone crushed by debt taken on for genuine need. And the wayfarer (ibn al-sabīl) is defined by present circumstance, not net worth: 'A wayfarer refers to a person who is on non-prohibited travel and has nothing on hand to spend for return home, even if he is rich at his homeland' — extended expressly to today's stranded, including 'Assistance to poor students who are outside their countries and have no scholarships for studying as per customary practices.'

WHY IT BELONGS HERE. A riba-free financial life is not only about how you earn and hold wealth cleanly; it is about where the purifying share of it goes. Res 165 is the settled OIC map of that flow — reassuring the individual he need not agonise over all eight categories, holding the community's institution to a trustee's honesty, and licensing zakāh to become seed capital that ends poverty rather than merely padding it.