Accordingly, the Bedouin who owns only four camels, the farmer whose harvest is less than three hundred ṣāʿs, and the merchant whose capital and merchandise amount to less than two hundred dirhams are all eligible to receive zakāt so that their daily needs may be met.
5 – Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, al-Khaṭṭābī, al-Nawawī, and others said: this ḥadīth is the basic proof for the amounts of wealth that can bear the duty of mutual support, making charity obligatory on them while waiving it for the small holdings that cannot bear it, lest the owners of wealth be harmed or the poor be deprived of their rights. When the wealth reaches the niṣāb, the due becomes obligatory; below that, nothing is owed. This is the position of the vast majority of scholars, including the imams Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, and Aḥmad.
6 – The ḥadīth shows that the determination of the niṣāb and the rate to be paid is referred to the Sacred Law, not to common practice. If it were left to custom, the reins of the matter would be lost, for people differ, and some misers would withhold even a little from a great deal.
7 – Al-Khaṭṭābī and others stated that the ḥadīth, “No zakāt is due on less than five awsaq,” indicates that zakāt is not obligatory on any type of vegetables. This is the view held by the majority of scholars. The Prophet and the caliphs after him, though such crops were grown right beside them, did not levy zakāt on them; their omission demonstrates that it is not required and that refraining from it is the Sunnah to be followed.
8 – Concerning the words, “There is no zakāt on less than five uqiyyahs of silver,” Shaykh al-Islām and others said that it is an explicit exemption for anything below that amount and an explicit obligation for five or more, and most scholars adopt this view. In the authentic collection it is stated: “If it is only one hundred and ninety, nothing is due upon it,” and in another wording: “There is no zakāt on anything less than two hundred.” Al-Bukhārī said: “In my judgment both versions are sound, and the additional amount is to be calculated proportionally.”