question| Can we use our khums to pay for the renovations of a mosque?

answer| Given the current circumstances, the use of khums for such purposes is inadmissible. You may use zakāt^[1] or the donations collected from the believers for the purpose in question.

[1] Khums is the religious tax that, generally speaking, affects the surplus of one’s annual income. That is, if at the end of one’s religious fiscal year (al-sanah al-khumsīyyah) one is left with a surplus of income after calculating all of the year’s expenses, the surplus is subject to the tax of khums, which is one-fifth of the surplus, which must be submitted to one’s authority-in-deference (marjaʻ taqlīd) or to the jurisprudent-ruler (walīyy al-faqīh). Zakāt, on the other hand, is a religious tax that applies to certain items (such as gold, silver, wheat, barley) if one possesses a certain amount of them as specified in Islamic law. Khums is, generally speaking, a universally applicable religious tax, whereas zakāt is much less frequently applicable. Also, the purposes for which these two types of religious tax may be used are different.