May the peace, mercy and blessing of Allah be upon you,

To proceed: My younger brother is just a regular employee, he is not married yet and he still lives with my father. He just started to build himself a house on his own, with my father's help from time to time (as much as he can), and I have given my brother some money to help him finish building the house.

My question: Would it be permissible for me to consider this money to be part of the zakat that I have to pay? Or do I just have to help my brother and not consider this help as part of the obligatory zakat? Note that the monthly salary that my brother gets is limited and that for him to build a house, relying only on that salary, would take years. Please advise and may Allah bless you.

And may the peace, mercy and blessing of Allah be upon you.

In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful,

All praise is due to Allah and may peace and blessing be upon the Messenger of Allah, his family, companions and true followers. To proceed:

Giving zakat to a poor brother whose income is insufficient is lawful and we hope that whoever does that will receive two rewards: the reward for paying zakat and the reward for maintaining family ties, insha'Allah. However, attention must be called to the fact that favoritism [giving to one person at the expense of others in need] is not permissible in regards to zakat, nor is it permissible for someone who pays zakat to protect his wealth with charity. If owning a home is considered an exigent need or a clear necessity in certain cases, it would be permissible to provide assistance with that from zakat money, but if one could do without that by renting (and this includes the vast majority of people) and if spending zakat money in home ownership would use up most of its funds, narrowing thereby the circle of benefit and being unfair to the rights of others in need, then spending zakat money on that would be a question which warrants further investigation. The closest opinion and the most appropriate in terms of proper management of zakat funds would be just to help with rent, in order to broaden the range of benefit from zakat and not restrict it to closed circles, depriving the vast majority of people from benefiting from it.