Our Yemen program is not the same as our Zakat fundraising. We’ve been paying Yemeni families since August 2022 using non-zakat funds. Zakat funds are delivered according to the zakat policy. Non-zakat funds are handled the same as any other donations.
We don’t ask families about faith status and do not plan to start doing so. The reason we direct zakat funds to Yemen is that it’s a non-issue – 99.99% of the country is Muslim. Our zakat advisors who certified the fund were happy with this arrangement.
What’s described above (“an otherwise eligible family informed you they were actually Christian, or some other non-Islamic faith”) is an edge we have yet to see. If this did happen, we’d simply arrange for their transfer to come from our non-zakat funds (see point #1).
Great question. How we approach this:
Our Yemen program is not the same as our Zakat fundraising. We’ve been paying Yemeni families since August 2022 using non-zakat funds. Zakat funds are delivered according to the zakat policy. Non-zakat funds are handled the same as any other donations.
We don’t ask families about faith status and do not plan to start doing so. The reason we direct zakat funds to Yemen is that it’s a non-issue – 99.99% of the country is Muslim. Our zakat advisors who certified the fund were happy with this arrangement.
What’s described above (“an otherwise eligible family informed you they were actually Christian, or some other non-Islamic faith”) is an edge we have yet to see. If this did happen, we’d simply arrange for their transfer to come from our non-zakat funds (see point #1).