Can I give my zakat as food, clothing, or other goods instead of cash?

The default established in the Sunnah is that zakat is paid out of the wealth itself — livestock from livestock, crops from crops, and money from money — so Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī and Aḥmad (in the well-known report) hold that zakat on cash and gold must be handed over as money, because the poor person has the right to decide what he needs. The Ḥanafīs, and Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah, permit paying the equivalent value in goods where there is a real benefit or need — citing Muʿādh ibn Jabal's instruction to the people of Yemen to bring him garments in place of barley and millet — for example famine relief, a family that would misuse cash, or a specific need the recipient has. So buying groceries, clothes or medicine for an eligible poor person is valid on this second view and is what many contemporary scholars allow when it genuinely serves the poor better; where there is no such need, giving cash is the safer course.

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