On "Giving Zakat for Political Campaigns"

Why theoretical permissibility is not the same as practical viability, and why the difference matters for your zakat.

A joint fatwa issued by the Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA) and the American Muslim Jurists Association (AMJA) on January 30, 2026 argues that zakat may be given for political campaigns under the category of mu’allafat al-qulub (those whose hearts are to be softened). A formal dissenting opinion has already been published from within the council itself, arguing from both methodological and governance standpoints that the fatwa transforms zakat from a bounded act of worship into a standing institutional funding mechanism. It is worth reading carefully.

I do not intend to relitigate the methodological arguments the dissent has already made. Nor do I intend to rehearse the detailed madhhab-level analysis that others have undertaken showing that the fatwa’s citations from the Hanbali, Maliki, and Shafi’i schools either understate or misrepresent what those sources actually require. That work has been done, and it speaks for itself.

What I want to address is different. It is the question that the person sitting at their kitchen table during Ramadan, calculator open, needs answered:

Can I actually do this with my zakat? And should I?

The answer to the first question is: it depends on whom you follow, and the conditions under which you are giving. The answer to the second is: almost certainly not, because the fatwa provides no workable framework for doing so, and the foreseeable consequences of trying are severe.

The Principle Is Not the Problem

Let me be clear about what I am not arguing. I am not arguing that the category of mu’allafat al-qulub has been abrogated. My own published position in Simple Zakat Guide is that this category remains operative. I have written that “preservation of faith is a main objective of Islam,” and that “any act that would preserve a person’s Islam or prevent Islam from being disparaged would fall into this category.” I have included new convert programs, early learning programs, and targeted media campaigns to combat anti-Muslim sentiment as examples of how this category may be applied.

I am also not arguing that political engagement is impermissible. Muslims should be involved in the political process, should advocate for their communities, and should fund that advocacy generously. The question is not whether to engage politically. The question is whether zakat is the right instrument for that engagement.

The theoretical basis for using this category is not objectionable. But a theoretical basis is not an implementation plan. And when we are talking about zakat, an act of worship whose validity depends on conformity to divinely prescribed limits, the gap between “theoretically permissible” and “practically viable” is not a detail. It is the entire question.

We Have Seen This Before

This is not the first time a zakat category has been expanded through broad interpretation, framed as an emergency, and left without institutional safeguards. It happened with fi sabilillah.

The classical meaning of Category 7 (”in God’s path”) was specific: non-conscripted soldiers fighting under a legitimate Muslim ruler who have no salary or stipend of their own. Later scholars expanded this, arguing that any attempt to establish God’s word as highest is eligible. In Simple Zakat Guide I noted this expansion and added a warning that I will repeat here: “While this opinion is common, it cannot be left open ended. Consult with a scholar and Zakat expert to determine whether or not this is applicable to a cause or person you would like to give Zakat to or not.”

That warning was necessary because I had already seen what happens when a category is expanded without controls. In my video commentary on the Guide, I described the pattern plainly: communities that take all of their zakat and put it in their construction fund, that hold zakat al-fitr and fail to distribute it before Eid, that give the poor a pittance while spending zakat on gala dinners, marketing, and construction costs. When you try to educate these organizations, they are obstinate and refuse to learn.

The footnote I included in the book on this point is worth reproducing in full:

Classically, the category of “Those collecting” was managed by the state, and zakat collections were deposited in the state treasury or Bait al-Mal. In the absence of Bait al-Mal, is it possible for masajid, Islamic centers, and da’wah organizations to stand in? This is a debated question among scholars, and one where strict conditions must be implemented. Why? The conflict of interest found in both acting as a zakat collection authority and simultaneously distributing it on the same organization’s expenses is blatantly obvious. To allow a person to both pose as the legitimate authority for zakat collection while also claiming a need for zakat allows a lack of oversight and distortion of measuring actual need that can lead to fraud, abuse, and misappropriation of zakat funds. In communities around the world, zakat funds are collected with the assumption they are being given to legitimate zakat recipients, only for the same organization to turn around and spend the funds on tenuous expenses (things like gala dinners, marketing, and construction costs) while the poor and needy in their areas go hungry. If you do give to one of these types of organizations, make sure that they have a clear and transparent policy in place for how the zakat funds are accounted for, that the funds designated for zakat are held separate from general funds, that the recipients of those funds through the organization are eligible for zakat, and that the organization clearly reports to the community how the funds are used and what types of people they are disbursed to. Anything less opens the organization up to criticism and opens you, the one giving zakat, up to the danger of your zakat not having been accepted.

The pattern with fi sabilillah is now well established. A legitimate category is expanded through broad interpretation. The expansion is framed as emergency or necessity. No institutional safeguards are put in place. The expansion becomes permanent. The primary recipients of zakat, namely the poor and destitute, are gradually displaced.

The fatwa on political campaigns proposes to replicate this pattern with mu’allafat al-qulub. The fatwa is framed with urgency around the crisis in Gaza. But by the time of its issuance in January 2026, the most acute phase of that crisis had passed, and the community was already contending with a different and arguably more immediate set of threats here at home: mass deportation campaigns, forced removal of community members, and direct assaults on the moral standing and civil liberties of Muslim communities in places like Minnesota and elsewhere. These are the pressing realities. The fatwa does not name them. The continued appeal to Gaza, while understandable on an emotional level, functions less as a genuine assessment of necessity and more as a way to bypass the harder question of whether this mechanism is actually suited to the domestic challenges the community now faces. A fatwa grounded in real conditions would have engaged those conditions directly. Instead, it relies on an emotional frame that, whatever its sincerity, does not correspond to the practical situation it claims to address.

The open-endedness of this approach means that the abuse of zakat will become more common in the name of ta’lif al-qulub, as it has with fi sabilillah.

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The Questions the Fatwa Does Not Answer

The fatwa stipulates five conditions. Let me examine whether any of them can actually be met in the context of American campaign finance.

Who is the mu’allaf? Classical application of this category presumes identifiable individuals with authority among their people, whose reconciliation can be plausibly linked to concrete benefit for the Muslim community. The Hanbalis require that the recipient be “a leader obeyed among his people” with demonstrable proof. The question is straightforward: who is the mu’allaf when you write a check to a political campaign? The candidate? The party? The PAC? The media consultant who produces the advertisements? The voter who sees the ad?

The distributed nature of democratic power (legislative bodies, checks and balances, coalition politics) differs fundamentally from the tribal leadership structures that the classical scholars were addressing. A member of Congress is not a tribal chieftain whose personal decision opens or closes the door for an entire community. A member of Congress is one vote among hundreds, operating within party structures, committee assignments, donor networks, and electoral pressures that no single contribution can redirect.

What constitutes “benefit” and who measures it? The fatwa requires “reasonable signs to believe that such funds would help the cause for which it is being raised.” This is aspirational language, not an enforceable standard. How are the proposed institutions going to measure political influence from campaign contributions? The documented reality of American politics is that policy positions often do not change based on campaign funding. Entire industries spend billions annually on lobbying with mixed results. Muslim financial influence is structurally marginal in this system. What influence, precisely, are we wielding? And if we cannot answer that question with specificity, how can we satisfy the requirement of ghalabat al-dhann (reasonable expectation) that the fatwa itself demands?

What happens when the candidate loses? Campaign donations are inherently speculative. Classical zakat was given to identifiable individuals for proximate, verifiable benefit. You can verify whether a convert program is reaching new Muslims. You can verify whether a media campaign is running. You cannot verify, in advance, whether a candidate will win an election. And if the candidate loses, the zakat is gone. It has not been spent on softening anyone’s heart. It has been spent on advertisements, consultants, and yard signs. In my published guidelines on Categories 4 through 8, I stated that zakat given to these categories should be “dictated by actual need and overall social benefit,” that it should be “paid on their behalf to their creditors or the services they need,” and that recipients “should exhibit need by providing bills, receipts, etc.” None of these conditions can be satisfied by a campaign donation.

What happens when the candidate wins but does not deliver? This is perhaps the most important practical question, and the fatwa does not address it. Political promises are frequently unfulfilled. A candidate who receives support from Muslim organizations may, once in office, face entirely different political pressures. The classical scholars who permitted giving to a chieftain did so on the understanding that the chieftain had the personal authority to deliver on the implicit bargain. A modern legislator operates under no such conditions. Are we softening the hearts of politicians, or are we enriching third parties?

Who serves as wali al-amr? The fatwa proposes that “trusted scholars and reputable specialists will effectively take on the role of a wali al-amr,” citing al-Juwayni. But citing al-Juwayni does not create a governance framework. What is the selection mechanism for these scholars and specialists? What is their accountability structure? What prevents conflicts of interest when scholars who issue fatwas of permissibility are embedded within the very organizations that would collect and disburse the funds? The fatwa does suggest, “as a suggestion, and not a legal ruling,” that no more than 1/8 of one’s total zakat be given to this category. That is a recommendation to the individual giver, and a reasonable one. But it is not a governance mechanism. It does not address the institutional side of the equation.

My book detailed the conditions classical jurists placed on zakat collectors under Category 3: a 1/8 cap on administrative expenses, a prohibition on personal gifts during employment, preference for employing the poor, and a requirement that the organization exist solely for charitable spending and zakat distribution. The fatwa proposes standing institutions to collect and disburse zakat for political purposes but imports none of these classical safeguards into their design. Telling the individual to cap their giving at 1/8 while providing no enforceable controls on the institution that receives it is not a governance framework. It is a disclaimer.

What prevents this from becoming permanent? The fatwa is framed around an urgent moment. But the institutional mechanisms it proposes (standing organizations, advisory boards, ongoing collection and distribution) are not emergency measures. They are permanent infrastructure. Once established, on what basis would they be dismantled? Every election cycle will present new threats and new opportunities. Every cycle will generate new urgency. The category, once opened for this purpose, will not close.

What about the legal exposure? The fatwa’s fifth condition, that institutions “must abide by the local laws and take advice of legal counsel to ensure that they do not contravene their country’s laws related to campaign financing,” is a single sentence doing the work of an entire compliance infrastructure that does not exist. The reality of American nonprofit law is considerably more complicated than this sentence suggests. Most Muslim organizations that would be positioned to collect and distribute zakat operate as 501(c)(3) tax-exempt entities. Under federal law, 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office.

This is not a gray area. It is a bright line, and crossing it risks revocation of tax-exempt status. The fatwa does not address how a zakat-collecting organization could direct funds to political campaigns without jeopardizing its nonprofit standing. It does not distinguish between 501(c)(3)s and 501(c)(4)s. It does not address the legal mechanics of establishing separate entities, maintaining adequate separation, or ensuring that zakat funds do not commingle with political expenditures in ways that trigger IRS scrutiny. To tell organizations to “take advice of legal counsel” while proposing a framework that puts them in direct tension with the conditions of their tax exemption is not a safeguard. It is an unfunded mandate.

What about political pressure on the organizations themselves? There is another dimension here that the fatwa does not acknowledge, and it is perhaps the most dangerous. We have already seen, in our own communities, how political pressure operates on Muslim nonprofit leaders. Board members with legal vulnerabilities have been pressured to take public stances, to push agendas, to align their organizations with political positions that serve external interests rather than communal ones. This is not hypothetical. It is documented and ongoing. Now imagine layering zakat collection for political campaigns on top of this existing vulnerability.

An organization that collects and disburses zakat for political purposes becomes a target, not only for the ordinary pressures of campaign finance compliance, but for the specific and intensified scrutiny that Muslim organizations already face from law enforcement, regulatory agencies, and political actors. Those who fall afoul of campaign finance laws will not simply receive a fine. They will face the same coercive apparatus that has already been used against community leaders: investigations, prosecutions, and the implicit threat of deportation or other consequences for those with precarious immigration status. The fatwa creates a mechanism that exposes community institutions to exactly the kind of political leverage that the community is already struggling to resist.

The Alternative That Already Exists

The fatwa itself acknowledges, in its final paragraph, that “there should be no two opinions regarding the permissibility of general sadaqah and other types of contributions being given for such causes.” This is correct. And it is the answer.

If the community wants to fund political engagement, then sadaqah, general charitable contributions, and direct philanthropy are all available. These mechanisms carry no risk to the validity of anyone’s worship. They require no fatwa. They impose no conditions that cannot be met. And they do not create the precedent of converting a bounded act of worship into a discretionary political funding stream.

The fact that these alternatives exist and are uncontested is itself significant. Classical scholars invoked mu’allafat al-qulub under conditions of genuine necessity. Ibn Taymiyyah, who is among the more expansive voices on this category, qualifies his permission with a condition the fatwa does not adequately reckon with: the disbeliever is given “if benefit is hoped for through his gift, such as his embracing Islam, or to avert his harm when it cannot be averted otherwise” [Majmu’ al-Fatawa, vol. 28, p. 290 and surrounding discussion]. “When it cannot be averted otherwise” is the operative phrase. When sadaqah is available, when philanthropy is available, when direct political donations are available without touching zakat, the “otherwise” condition is not met. Claims of zakat-level necessity are substantially weakened when the same objective can be pursued through means that carry no risk to anyone’s worship.

Conclusion

The problem the fatwa identifies is real. Muslim political marginalization is real. The threats facing our communities, from abroad and increasingly at home, are real. The desire to use every available tool to address these realities is understandable and, in many respects, commendable.

But zakat is not every available tool. It is a specific obligation with specific conditions, and its validity as an act of worship depends on those conditions being met. The fatwa’s five conditions read more like aspirational guidelines than enforceable safeguards. The analogical leap from tribal chieftains to democratic legislators is asserted more than demonstrated. The institutional framework proposed to manage this expansion does not exist. And the legal and political exposure it creates for the very organizations it would task with this work is not merely unaddressed; it is unacknowledged.

I wrote in my preliminary notes that this seems like a well-intentioned disaster waiting to happen. Having now reviewed the fatwa and the responses to it in detail, I have not found reason to revise that assessment.

If you want to support political causes, give sadaqah. Organize. Advocate. Fund candidates and campaigns with wealth that does not carry the weight of “an Obligation from Allah.” But do not put your zakat at risk on the basis of a fatwa that cannot answer the most basic practical questions about how its own conditions would be met.

And Allah knows best.

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Joe Bradford is the author of Simple Zakat Guide (2015, 10th anniversary ed. 2024) and the founder of simplezakatguide.com. You can read more about him at JoeBradford.net