Section: Zakāt on Trade Goods

The word ʿurūḍ is the plural of ʿarḍ (with a silent rā) and refers to anything set aside for buying and selling in pursuit of profit. It takes its name either because such goods are constantly “put on display to be bought and sold,” or because they are transient, coming and going.

Evidence that zakāt is obligatory on trade goods includes the Almighty’s statement: “Take from their wealth a charity by which you purify them and cause them to grow, and pray for them—indeed, your prayer is tranquillity for them. And Allah is All-Hearing, All-Knowing” (Q 9:103); and His words: “And those in whose wealth there is a recognized right for the beggar and the deprived” (Q 70:24–25). Since trade goods constitute the greater part of people’s assets, they are all the more clearly encompassed by the general wording of these verses.

Abū Dāwūd relates from Samurah that “the Prophet ﷺ used to command us to pay zakāt on whatever we had prepared for sale.” Because trade goods are productive wealth, zakāt is therefore due on them just as it is on freely-grazing livestock.

Several scholars have transmitted a consensus that goods held for commerce are subject to zakāt once a full lunar year has passed over them.