Chapter on the Zakāt of Horses

When the horses are pasturing animals (sāʾima), whether stallions or mares, the owner may choose between two methods: he may either give one dinar for every horse, or he may have them appraised and pay five dirhams for every two hundred dirhams of their value. No zakāt is due on stallions alone.

Abū Yūsuf and Muḥammad maintain that no zakāt is due on horses at all, nor on mules or donkeys unless they are held for commerce.

In the view of Abū Ḥanīfah and Muḥammad, no zakāt is owed on foals, lambs, or calves unless they are accompanied by adult animals; Abū Yūsuf, however, requires that one of the young animals be taken as zakāt.

If a specific age of animal is obligatory but the owner does not possess it, the collector may take an older animal and return the excess value, or take a younger one and collect the difference.

It is permissible to discharge zakāt in cash equivalents. No zakāt is due on working beasts nor on fodder.

The zakāt collector may not seize the very best livestock or the worst; he must take animals of average quality.

If someone possesses a full nisab and acquires additional animals of the same kind during the year, he combines them with his existing herd and pays zakāt on the whole.

Pasturing livestock (sāʾima) are those that subsist on grazing for most of the year; if they are given fodder for half the year or more, no zakāt is due on them.

According to Abū Ḥanīfah and Abū Yūsuf, zakāt is levied on the amount that reaches the nisab, not on the exempt surplus (ʿafw). Muḥammad holds that it is due on both.

If the wealth is destroyed after zakāt has become obligatory, the liability lapses. If one pays zakāt before the completion of the lunar year while still owning the nisab, the payment is valid.