Concerning zakāt on trade goods

In his marginal note, where he explains the Prophet’s words—“and there is zakāt in bazz”—he writes: “bazz: household goods.”

I say: al-Qāmūs defines bazz as “clothing, or household articles consisting of clothing and the like.” Rendering it as “clothing” fits the context, for household furnishings are, by consensus, not subject to zakāt.

Know, furthermore, that this ḥadith and the preceding report of Samura are both weak; neither has a reliable isnād.1 Ibn Ḥajar judged some routes of the latter to be ḥasan, and on the surface it appears so. I followed that view for a time, until it became clear to me that Mūsā ibn ʿUbayda—who is weak—occurs in the chain, as shown by the versions of al-Dāraqutnī and al-Mukhlis. His name dropped out of al-Ḥākim’s isnād, causing al-Ḥākim to declare it ṣaḥīḥ and Ibn Ḥajar to grade it ḥasan; both are excused.

The ḥadith also contains a word over which the manuscripts differ, namely bazz. In some copies it is bazz, with an open bāʾ and a dotted zāʾ—a form explicitly transmitted by Mūsā ibn ʿUbayda, whose weakness you already know. In others it is burr, with a ḍammah on the bāʾ and an undotted rāʾ (meaning “wheat”). Neither we—nor many before us—have been able to determine which reading is stronger. As Ṣiddīq Khān said in al-Rawḍah: “Where uncertainty remains, proof is incomplete.”

I say: that would apply even were the ḥadith sound—so what when it is weak!

The truth is that the claim of an obligatory zakāt on commercial commodities is unsupported by any evidence from the Book or from authentic Sunnah, and it clashes with the principle of original exemption (al-barāʾah al-aṣliyyah), which is here upheld by his statement