KUALA LUMPUR, July 24, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The Malaysian Federal Territories Islamic Religious Council is proposing to use Zakah money in helping outstanding Muslim students who can’t afford to pay their fees and to offer them scholarships.

The fund will be available as soon as the government approves the proposal, Dr Abdullah Md Zin, the council chairman, said Sunday, July 24.

"Once approval is given, we will launch the schemes in a big way to show Zakah contributors their money is being used for a worthy cause," he said after opening the Al-Azim Islamic religious primary school and kindergarten, reported Bernama news agency.

The mooted Zakah assistance schemes include aid to school and university students who excelled in their studies as well as giving students scholarships to pursue their tertiary education.

Prominent Egyptian scholar Sheikh `Abdul-Kahleq Hasan Ash-Shareef told IslamOnline.net Sunday that Muslim scholars believe poor and needy Muslim students to be among due recipients of Zakah.

"They maintain that it is permissible to give them from the Zakah money to help them get the books they need, the clothes, a place to live in and it makes no difference whether they are seeking religious knowledge or any other branch of science that helps the Muslim Ummah achieve progress in useful fields such as medicine, mathematics, etc.."

The scholar went on: "Thus, the act of the Federal Territories Islamic Religious Council in Malaysia concerning giving outstanding Muslim students, who can ill-afford to finance their studies from the Zakah money is a permissible act as long as those students are really in need of the Zakah money to fulfill their basic needs."

Zakah is obligatory amounts of money that rich Muslims pay to the poor. It is obligatory on those who have the nisab (i.e. the minimum wealth owned for one year). It is about 3 ounces of gold or its cash value.

The RM1.5 million Al-Azim Islamic religious primary school and kindergarten were built with the council's funds on a piece of land owned by the armed forces.

The four-storey school has 12 classrooms for 1,200 students, Bernama said.

Dr Abdullah, also a minister in the prime minister's department, said the council would continue to disburse cash aid for marriages and to build houses for low-income Muslims to enable them to live a normal life.

The council, he said, would also intensify efforts to collect Zakah from Muslims in Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and Labuan.

Last year, the council collected RM106 million, Bernama said.

The Egyptian scholar also commended the Malaysian council's use of cash aid from the Zakah money for marriages and building houses for low-income Muslims.

"I think this is a progressive stage of social solidarity from the Zakah money that people there should start after making sure that there are no poor or needy people there."