Status of Zakah from the Viewpoint of Governmental Islamic Jurisprudence

Zakah (Zakat), a form of alms-giving treated in Islam as a religious obligation or tax, is one of the pillars of Islam, which, by Quranic ranking, is next after prayer (salat) in importance. Throughout the history of Islamic jurisprudence (Fiqh) Shia and Sunni jurisprudents and scholars have written many books on this subject. The Sire of the Prophet (pbuh) and his successors shows that Zakat is mandated and collected by the state and they received it with a systematic structure and the sacred verse of the Holy Quran also includes a portion of Zakah for the use of agents of collecting and distributing Zakah. But in the history of Islam, there have been political changes that have removed Zakat from Shiite jurisprudence in theory and practice and it has been altered into a government-run voluntary zakat contribution. This paper seeks to prove that although Zakat is most commonly used to eradicate poverty, but if a government is founded on righteousness and justice, it must be received and paid by the ruler and the Islamic State. An overview of the Zakat and Fatwa's traditions of the Shi'ite jurisprudents shows that it is "Taklif" (a legal charge or obligation) for the owners of the property to pay Zakat and Shi'a jurists are less likely to consider Zakat as a sovereign state. The main question of the research can be: is Zakat from the Islamic government's available financing resource for eliminating poverty and other purposes, or is it essentially non-governmental? In this article, by analytical method and based on jurisprudential traditions and texts, it has been proven that Zakat is essentially from the financial resources of the Islamic ruler to fulfill the goals stated in the Quranic verse. And the reason for the obsoleteness of this opinion in the view of some Shi'ite jurisprudents was the lack of "BASTE-YAD" (the de facto guardianship of Imam (a.s) or his deputy) in the era of presence and occultation of the Imam. Now, with the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran which its ruler is "Velâyat-e Faqih" (The Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist) Zakat must be at the disposal of the Velâyat-e Faqih.