Grand Ayatollah Shirazi: Doing a good deed does not cancel out the obligation to pay khums and zakat
The daily scholarly meeting of Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Sadegh Hosseini Shirazi was held on Thursday, the 14th of Safar. In this session, like the previous meetings, he answered the questions of the attendees about various legal issues.
In this meeting, Grand Ayatollah Shirazi discussed the following topic: “If someone is a good person and does a lot of good deeds, but does not pay khums and zakat, will his good deeds replace khums?”
The Marja explained that: “Suppose a person breaks someone’s leg. Now, according to Sharia rules, he is indebted and must pay compensation to the victim. But if the offender does not pay the compensation, and instead does good deeds, it will definitely not replaced the compensation.”
“Good deeds are rewarded in their own place, but they cannot replace compensation. So, if someone is responsible for khums and zakat, he is indebted, and he must pay khums and zakat on his property,” his Eminence added.
The Marja then stated the following based on verse 27 of Surah al-Ma’idah, God accepts {deeds} only from the pious, “One who does not fulfill a wajib is not pious, so it is possible that even the good deeds of such a person may not be accepted, but of course, may benefit him/her is some ways.”
“Sometimes a person does a good deed; for example, he/she provides food in the name of Aba Abdillah al-Hussain (peace be upon him). This person’s action is definitely rewarded by God Almighty and benefits will be considered for him, because of the effort he has made, but the word إنَّمَا , which is one of the words of restriction, indicates that God does not accept the deeds of someone who is not pious,” Grand Ayatollah Shirazi stated in relation to the difference between the reward of an action and the acceptance of an action.
Other jurisprudential topics discussed in this scholarly meeting by Grand Ayatollah Shirazi were as follows: the ruling of vicarious conduct of obligations and mustahab, a brief explanation of verse 82 of Surah Yassin, the position of Prophet Ibrahim (peace be upon him) after the 14 Infallibles, ruling on the use of personal property whose khums has not been paid, the ruling on making stipulations for lending money, explanations related to the books of divine prophets, and some rules of marriage.
