Giving Zakah to rich seeker of knowledge
11-4-2011 | IslamWeb
Question:
A person is a man of resources. His daughter is studying abroad. He requested for financial assistance for the education of his daughter even from the Zakat fund. His opinion is that a student (whereever he/she is studying) is entitled for Zakat even his/her father is finacially capable of meeting the expneses and is "Ghani".
Answer:
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad 
is His slave and Messenger.
According to the view of the majority of the jurists 
the student of knowledge who is entitled to receive Zakah is the student of religious knowledge if he/she is poor and even if he is able to earn his/her living but him/her being preoccupied by earning his/her living hinders him/her from seeking knowledge. The condition for the permissibility of paying Zakah to him/her is that he/she should be smart enough to acquire knowledge. For more benefit, please refer to Fatwa 88952.
Also, this applies to any kind of knowledge which the Muslims need, in the sense that they get a public benefit by making this person preoccupied only with studying it.
However, some contemporary scholars did not restrict giving Zakah to the above-mentioned students only, but in our view, it is better to abide by what the jurists said, in order to free oneself from liability and to be on the safe side.
Therefore, in our view, this girl should not be given Zakah at all, because even if she is among the students of knowledge who are entitled to receive Zakah because of her being preoccupied by seeking the above-mentioned type of knowledge and it is expected that she will acquire it, then Zakat cannot be given to her as it is her father who is obliged to spend on her in this case as expressed by the jurists of the Shaafi’i School in regard to spending on a student who is acquiring religious knowledge while meeting the Sharee'ah conditions.
On the other hand, if she studies a subject other than the above-mentioned type of knowledge, then she is not entitled to receive Zakah.
Allaah Knows best.