Even if he is saving money in order to perform Hajj, zakah is due on it once a full lunar year has passed.

Question: Is he required to accumulate wealth in order to pay zakah? And when a full lunar year has passed over the minimum taxable amount of wealth, is he required to take the necessary steps to pay the zakah?

Answer: He is not required to accumulate wealth in order to pay zakah. However, once a full lunar year has passed over the minimum taxable amount of wealth, he must take the necessary steps to pay its zakah.

The difference between the two is that whatever is necessary for an obligation to become binding is not itself obligatory, whereas whatever is necessary to fulfill an obligation is obligatory. Acquiring wealth in order to pay zakah is a means by which the obligation of zakah becomes binding, and is therefore not obligatory.

Hajj is similar. Do we say that a person is required to accumulate wealth in order to perform Hajj? Or do we say that if he has the means, he should perform Hajj?

The answer is: if he has the means, he should perform Hajj; as for the former, it is not obligatory.

Zakah is due on gold once it reaches twenty mithqals, and on silver once it reaches two hundred dirhams: one quarter of one tenth of each of them …

His statement, “Zakah is due on gold once it reaches twenty mithqals, and on silver once it reaches two hundred dirhams: one quarter of one tenth of each of them.”

The subject of “is due” is the phrase “one quarter”; that is, one quarter of one tenth is due, which is one fortieth. The benefit of knowing that one quarter of one tenth is one fortieth is that it makes it easier to calculate zakah on the two monetary metals. Thus, if you wish to calculate it on the two monetary metals, divide what you possess by forty; the result is the zakah due.