Zakat for maintaining school and hospital buildings

A question about zakat for maintaining school and hospital buildings, in which Jordan's General Iftaa Department answered that the recipients of zakat are limited to the eight categories, and building or maintaining schools is not among them, so zakat may not be paid for it; voluntary charity may be collected instead, or donors directed to educational endowments. ¹

The questioner asked whether zakat may be spent on modernising and maintaining the buildings of schools, universities and hospitals, including painting, upgrading facilities, replacing seats and restructuring buildings. ¹

The Department answered that the recipients of zakat are fixed by the Shari'a and limited to the eight categories named in Surat al-Tawba 9:60, citing a hadith narrated by Abu Dawud from Ziyad ibn al-Harith al-Suda'i whose meaning is that God did not accept the judgement of a prophet or anyone else concerning alms until He Himself ruled on them and divided them into eight parts. ¹ It said that building or maintaining schools is not among these categories, so zakat may not be paid for it, but voluntary charity may be collected for this purpose, or donors may be directed to educational endowments. ¹ It noted that the Jordanian Iftaa Council issued resolution 6/2018, which counts donating to improve education and endowing funds for the educational endowment initiative among the things the Shari'a calls for, provided the donation does not conflict with the instructions of the Ministry of Education. ¹

Jordan's General Iftaa Department published this fatwa on aliftaa.jo as no. 3733, dated 24 November 2022. ¹ The museum records this text as a historical document attributed to the body or scholar that issued it; it issues no ruling of its own.