on the year of the amount below the minimum taxable threshold. This is not so; rather, the year begins for all of it from the time the minimum taxable threshold is completed.
Another example: A person acquires in the month of Muharram an amount reaching the minimum taxable threshold, then inherits in Jumada al-Thani an amount below the threshold—one hundred dirhams. Zakah is due on it, even though it is below the threshold, because he possesses wealth that reaches the threshold. However, the year for the one hundred dirhams begins in Jumada al-Thani, not in Muharram, because it is added to what he already possesses in completing the minimum taxable threshold, but not in calculating the year.
The apparent meaning of the author’s words is that neither maturity nor soundness of mind is a condition.
Accordingly, zakah is due on the wealth of a child and on the wealth of an insane person. This issue is subject to disagreement among the scholars.
The reason for the disagreement is that some scholars regard zakah as a purely devotional act. They say that a child and an insane person are not subject to acts of worship, such as prayer. Thus, if prayer is not obligatory upon the insane person or the child, then zakah is even more so.
Other scholars regard zakah as a right attached to wealth—that is, it is due from the wealth for those entitled to zakah. They therefore maintain that neither maturity nor soundness of mind is a condition, because this ruling is contingent upon the fulfilment of a condition: reaching the minimum taxable threshold. Once that is present, zakah becomes obligatory. Legal accountability is not a condition for this; hence zakah is due on the wealth of a child and the wealth of an insane person.
This view is more correct. Its evidence includes the following:
- Allah, Most High, says: “Take from their wealth a charity by which you purify them and cleanse them thereby.” [al-Tawbah: 103] Thus, the determining factor is the wealth, not its owner.