Re: I am confused!
From what you have mentioned, I don't think she deserves zakat, which is actually for people who are very poor, having a very small property, equivalent silver or equivalent amount of little gold. (can't go into the details here, you can easily find detailed info from sunnipath.com and other sites) There are different cases and conditions, but certainly those are very poor people who have a very low income and no one to support them (that doesn't seem to be your friend's case). You don't know about her property..etc. the information that is required to know if she is eligible for zakaat or not is not available to you. But if you would investigate the details in order to know her eligibility, she might get hurt.
Anyways, the sawab of giving a loan is a lot more than that of giving charity/sadaqa. Your approach of lending her money is better than getting her services (that you don't need). If she needs money urgently, she needs to plan and improve the quality of her work (and lower her prices) so that customers themselves are attracted towards it. Forcing a friend to have a service that one doesn't need is indicative of a poor quality work (that is not attracting other customers) and also a kind of indirect begging, that indicates low self respect. A "Khuddar" person prefers a loan than forcing anyone to get services that one has clearly stated that one doesn't need. Unfortunately, her approach is not at all professional). You shouldn't feel guilty because you are doing the right thing by offering a loan (make sure you follow the Quranic principle of having witnesses, getting her words/signature in written,..etc. if you seriously want your money back), and her approach of persuading you to give an amount permanently to her is wrong and unreasonable.
your first para was fine and for the second para, I believe Majesty thinks right!
WOW @ RAW's comments. You find a person who ants to take an amount for a service not to have any self respect and not khuddar? Maybe she doesn't want to take a loan because of multifariousness reasons to which we have no idea: the most logical one being she will not be able able to explain where she got the money from and I'm sure no husband would like to know that his wife has got loans.
The question hardly asked for a critique on the professionalism of that poor woman.
Zakat according to shariya must be given to a person that is truly deserving; and he must be punctual about his/her wajibat. As in must say 5 time prayers, roza, etc. If such fine details cannot be found out or is cumbersome to the person owing zakat the money must be given to an Aalim who will carry out the necessary procedures before distributing zakat.
Hope this helps.
Peace R.A.W
I think this is all mixed up ... first of all the idea of zakat was not raised by the requester (beautician), but by the OP, and from my knowledge of the OP, why would she consider giving the requester "zakat" ??? And then ... why ask the question whether someone is eligible for zakat when the beautician herself said categorically that she does not want to be given charity - but she wants to provide a service.
Then we talk about eligibility of receiving zakat ... we can't make that call from the description given by the OP. In fact we can't make any recommendations to the OP from a religious perspective because her money should be spent in accordance to her own wishes and perhaps in accordance to her own faith requirements.
As for insistence in providing a service - that depends on how close the beautician feels she is to the OP ... if she feels she is closer then she may be able to ask without taking formalities into consideration. For a desperate person "insistence" may not be a measure of their true "principles" because their situation may have driven them to that state. It may be that she has come across a lot of debt ... or someone may have fallen ill or other costs incurred alongside the higher rent. We have no idea of knowing what her options were ... The best thing to do is to tell the OP to be clear to the beautician that, her services are not required.
Only sincere and accurate feedback about the quality of a professional service can lead to the beautician realising her faults as a beautician so she can effectively obtain the right level of training in order to meet the expectations of her customers.
So queen_24 ... be honest to the beautician and tell her to get more training or try other methods, improve her service then you will be prepared to not only get ther service, but also pay full rate for it.
Oh ... I just read your post ...
Sorry queen_24 - I must be confusing you with someone else ... apologies for the misunderstanding but the points in this post still apply.
to all, her work quality is not low, she does a very good work, but there is something I dont want to mention here, for which I am avoiding to have services from her. I hope you people wont get into these lines.
Hm.. I think, she doesn't deserve Zakaat, as far as I know her, I think, she refused to even have some loan from me because she is Khuddarr or maybe as Majesty said..
anyways, so any suggestions? how can I help her then? no zakaat can be given, she is not taking loan, NOW?
Apologies - please refer to my previous post.