Assalaamu alaykum wa rahmatullaahi wa barakaatuh. Should an imam be placed on a monthly salary, even when the followers are not financially viable. Or is it mandatory that an imam take 1/5 of what ever value or volume of money or items are donated to the masjid? Please, support your answers with either a Quranic verse or a sound hadith. Thank you.

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah and that Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.

We have previously clarified in Fatwa 258814 that the scholars held different opinions regarding the permissibility of allocating a salary to the imaam; the preponderant opinion in this regard is that it is permissible if he is poor and needy and the masjid requires that he carries out the tasks entrusted to him on a full-time basis. The imaam, in this case, is entitled to an allowance or salary from the Public Treasury.

As for the question whether the followers are obliged to pay him the salary, the answer is no, it is not incumbent on them to pay him anything regardless of whether they are financially able or not. The Islamic Sharee'ah does not oblige the Muslims to pay a salary to their imaam, and the imaam is not obliged to lead them; he may find other work in order to earn his living. Nevertheless, if there is no other qualified person to lead the prayer but him, and we say that the congregational prayer is obligatory, then in this case it is as obligatory on him to lead the prayer as an individual obligation. One cannot accept money in return for carrying out any act of worship that is deemed an individual obligation on him.

Haashiyat Ad-Dusooqi ‘ala Ash-Sharh Al-Kabeer reads, “It is impermissible to receive wages in return for carrying out an individual religious matter required of a certain individual. It is impermissible for him to appoint another person to carry out that religious matter on his behalf even if we assume that that religious matter is not an obligatory act of worship...”

As for the money donated to the masjid, it should be spent in the way specified by the donors. If someone, for instance, offers a sum of money in charity to buy carpets or lamps for the masjid, then it should be spent in buying those very objects, and it is impermissible for the imaam or any other person to take any of that money because the basic principle is that money given in charity should be spent in the very channels specified by the donor, and no one, neither the imaam nor anyone else, is entitled to take anything of it as long as the donor does not specify that. As for the money donated for the general interests of the masjid, it is to be spent according to what the people responsible for the masjid deem in its interest. If they deem that it is in the masjid's interest to pay some of that money to the imaam, then there is no harm in that.

Allaah Knows best.