According to the symposium held by the Islamic Fiqh Academy in India in its 13th session, it is not lawful for the bodies responsible for collecting zakah to invest the money collected and distribute the resulting profits among the due recipients of zakah</i >. But it is lawful for the recipients to invest the money they have received themselves or with the help of the bodies responsible for collecting it. It is also lawful for the bodies responsible for collecting zakah to purchase houses or shops and transfer their ownership to the recipients, for transferring the ownership in that case means that the recipients have received their due rights in zakah, though this is not in cash.
Following are the statements issued by the Islamic Fiqh Academy in India:
1- “It is clear that Muslims have very low standards of living and lag behind in the economic field. Christian missionaries, misleading people, and anti-Islam movements do their best to exploit the Muslims’ poverty and ignorance and try to make them deviate from the straight path by cooperating with them economically. Enlightened and rich Muslims should deal with such a serious situation and exert their utmost to eliminate the poverty of the Muslim community and improve its economic conditions so as to save Muslims from falling as easy preys to the enemy. It is incumbent upon rich Muslims everywhere to help their poor fellow Muslims through paying them the zakah. If the money of zakah does not meet the needs of the poor, the rich are to help them through other means like giving charity and donations.
2- The poor and the needy have all rights of ownership to the money of zakah paid to them. Accordingly, it is lawful for them to invest the money in trade or use it in buying stocks so as to benefit from it in the future.
3- It is lawful for the body responsible for collecting zakah to use the money collected to buy machines and instruments that may benefit the poor and the needy in their work and help them be economically independent, but on condition that the ownership of such machines and instruments be transferred to the poor and the needy. In that way, zakah will be paid on behalf of its payers.
4- It is not lawful to use the money of zakah to buy shops and houses and give them to the poor and the needy to use and dwell in without transferring ownership to them.
5- It is not lawful to invest the money of zakah in projects established by factories or companies and distribute the benefits resulting therefrom among the due recipients of zakah, whether that has been done by the payers of zakah themselves or by the bodies responsible for collecting and distributing it. This is because the money of zakah itself will not reach its due recipients in that way. Besides, it is feared that the factories and companies in which the money of zakah has been invested may have losses. In addition to that, this does not help the due recipients of zakah meet their immediate needs. Moreover, it is a kind of freezing the money of zakah.
6- It is one of the responsibilities of the payers of zakah in a certain region or the bodies responsible for collecting it in that region to distribute it first among the due recipients of the region until their needs are met.”