Can zakat be used to pay funeral expenses?
In general, zakat should not be used to pay a deceased person’s burial expenses directly, even if the deceased was zakat-eligible during their lifetime.
The main reason is that most scholars stipulate that zakat must involve transferring ownership (tamlik) to a living recipient who is one of the eight categories mentioned in Surah al-Tawbah (9:60). Once a person has died, they can no longer receive ownership of zakat.
However, there are some important distinctions:
* If the deceased left an estate, the funeral and burial costs should be paid from the estate before the inheritance is distributed.
* If there is no estate and the family is poor and zakat-eligible, zakat may be given to the poor family members. Once they own the zakat, they may choose to spend it on the burial expenses.
* If there are no poor relatives and no one able to pay, the burial should generally be covered through voluntary charity (sadaqah), the local Muslim community, or a mosque burial fund rather than zakat.
Some contemporary scholars have discussed exceptional circumstances, but the majority opinion is that zakat is not paid directly for funeral expenses.