The Egyptian Dar al Ifta said Islam allows spending Zakat money (alms) on building houses for poor and homeless persons and on upgrading villages.

Zakat can also be expended on sheltering homeless children and training and educating them, Dar al Ifta said in a fatwa on Thursday in response to a question by “Tahya Misr” (Long Live Egypt) Fund on whether the fund’s activities can be funded from Zakat money.

The religious alms can be spent on treating HCV patients and on starting small and medium projects for the poor and needy on condition that they are granted the ownership of those projects, it added.

Source: MENA