An illustration is the disagreement between Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī over olives: Mālik held that zakāh is due on them, whereas al-Shāfiʿī, in his later Egyptian view, exempted them. The root of their dispute is whether olives constitute a staple food or not.
A similar difference arose among Mālik’s own companions over figs—does zakāh apply to them or not?
Some jurists maintained that zakāh is obligatory on fruits but not on vegetables. This is the view of Ibn Ḥabīb, who cites the Almighty’s words, “He is the One who produces gardens, trellised and untrellised…” (Q 6:141). Anyone who distinguishes in that verse between fruits and olives rests his claim on a frail argument.
The scholars concur that no zakāh is owed on personal effects that are not intended for trade. They disagreed, however, about merchandise acquired for commercial purposes. The jurists of the various Muslim centres declared it obligatory, while the Ẓāhirīs denied it.
The reasons for their disagreement are twofold: first, their divergence over whether analogy (qiyās) can ground the obligation of zakāh; second, their difference regarding the authenticity of the report from Samurah ibn Jundub: “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ used to command us to pay zakāh on whatever we prepared for sale,” as well as the narration attributed to him ﷺ: “Pay the zakāh on wheat.”
The analogy adopted by the majority is that trade goods are wealth intentionally devoted to growth, and thus resemble the three categories on which zakāh is unanimously due—namely crops, livestock, and gold and silver.
Al-Ṭaḥāwī maintained that the obligation of zakāh on merchandise is established from ʿUmar and Ibn ʿUmar, with no Companion known to have dissented; some scholars treat such a circumstance—when a statement is reported from one Companion and no contrary view is transmitted from another—as constituting consensus among the Companions, but this reasoning is weak.
Section Three: Determining the Nisāb
Chapter One: The Nisāb of Gold and Silver
Section Three. In determining, for each category of zakatable wealth, the nisāb—the threshold at which zakāh becomes obligatory—and in specifying what is due, both in kind and in amount, we shall set out the points on which the jurists agree and those on which they differ, item by item, among the categories whose liability is undisputed and those still subject to debate. We shall organise this discussion in chapters:
Chapter One: Gold and Silver.