Zainab Ath-Thaqafiyah (May Allah be pleased with her) the wife of `Abdullah bin Mas`ud (May Allah be pleased with him) reported: When Messenger of Allah (PBUH) told the women that they should give Sadaqah (charity), even if it should be some of their jewellery, I returned to `Abdullah bin Mas`ud and said, "You are a man who does not possess much, and Messenger of Allah (PBUH) has commanded us to give Sadaqah. So go and ask him if giving to you will serve the purpose; otherwise, I shall give it to someone else." He asked me that I should better go myself. I went and found a woman of the Ansar at the door of Messenger of Allah (PBUH), waiting to ask a similar question as mine. The Prophet (PBUH) was endowed with dignity, and so we could not go in. When Bilal (May Allah be pleased with him) came out to us, we said to him: Go to Messenger of Allah (PBUH) and tell him that there are two women at the door who have come to ask him whether it will serve them to give Sadaqah to their husbands and to orphans who are in their charge, but do not tell him who we are. Bilal (May Allah be pleased with him) went in and asked him, and Messenger of Allah (PBUH) asked him "who the women were". When he told him that they were a woman of the Ansar and Zainab, he asked him "which Zainab it was", and when he was told it was the wife of `Abdullah bin Mas`ud, he (PBUH) said, "They will have a double reward, one for maintaining the ties of kinship and another for Sadaqah".[Al-Bukhari and Muslim].
Commentary:
1- We learn from this Hadith that a woman can also give Sadaqah and Zakat to her husband, provided he is poor. But its opposite is not permissible. That is to say, a husband cannot pay Zakat to his wife because he is responsible for her maintenance while wife is not obliged to do it for her husband. So, the principle deduced from it is that one who is bound to pay Zakat under the Shari`ah is not permitted to pay it to his dependents. 2- In case of need, a woman can go out of her house subject to the condition that she observes the restriction of the veil prescribed by the Shari`ah in this behalf. 3- Like men, women should also take, keen interest in religious matters. They should not feel shy of doing it.
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