“the categories differ, then sell as you wish, provided it is hand to hand.” (1)

Accordingly, the author’s statement is general, extending even to the exchange of gold for silver.

The established position of the school is that exchanging gold for silver does not interrupt the zakah year, because they are treated as a single category, as evidenced by the fact that one completes the other in reaching the nisab.

The correct view is that one does not complete the other in reaching the nisab, and that the zakah year is interrupted, because they are two distinct categories. Trade goods, however, are subject to zakah according to their value. Therefore, the zakah year is not interrupted if trade goods are exchanged for gold or silver, nor if gold or silver is exchanged for trade goods, because zakah on trade goods is due on their value rather than on the goods themselves. It is therefore as though dirhams had been exchanged for dirhams. Gold, silver, and trade goods are thus regarded as one thing. The same applies when gold is exchanged for silver if both are intended for trade; in that case, they are like a single category.

His statement, “not as a means of evading zakah”: lā is the particle of categorical negation, and “as a means of evasion” is an accusative denoting purpose. The meaning is that if he sells the nisab or exchanges it for something of a different category in order to evade zakah, then the zakah year is not interrupted, because he has done so as a legal stratagem to evade an obligation. Resorting to a stratagem to evade an obligation does not remove it, just as resorting to a stratagem to commit what is unlawful does not make it lawful. This is due to the Prophet’s saying: “Do not do what the Jews did, thereby making lawful Allah’s prohibitions through the slightest of