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B. A.'s avatar

Being an avid Islamic Relief donor for years, when I noticed the salaries of the CEOs in the past couple of years, it just didn't sit well with me. Thank you for taking the time to do the research for us, I will probably cease my donations to Islamic Relief and choose a different avenue for donations, unless they clean up their act. Extremely disappointed that what I was suspecting is actually true to a degree.

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Sithara's avatar

Jazak Allahu Khayran for this article.

I see no religiously valid reason to give zakat to IRUSA. The same goals can be accomplished (and even more, as less $ are spent on admin) by donating to Islamic Relief Worldwide (the UK organization).

Interestingly, IRUSA admits as much in its answer to question 8 in its webpage: "https://irusa.org/admin-explained/" Basically, it says the only reason to give to IRUSA as opposed to Islamic Relief Worldwide is that US taxpayers can get a tax deduction.

Now, getting a tax deduction is nice, but that is not the purpose of giving zakat. And we should not be picking zakat recipient simply because we can get nice tax deductions. I'm guessing the best zakat is to give cash to one's poor neighbors. We certainly won't get tax deductions doing that!

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