Second: on camels.
Third: on sheep.
Fourth: on cattle.
Fifth: on crops.
Sixth: on merchandise.
Chapter One
Gold and Silver
As for the amount of silver that makes zakāh obligatory, the scholars are unanimous that it is five awāq, in accordance with the established ḥadīth of the Prophet ﷺ:
“No zakāh is due on less than five awāq of silver.”
They differed, however, with regard to silver extracted directly from a mine—both about whether a nisāb is required and about the rate due on it. Nevertheless, they agree that the amount payable on ordinary gold and silver—so long as the metals have not just been mined—is one-quarter of one-tenth (2.5 %).
Within this chapter they disagreed on five points:
- The nisāb of gold.
- Whether there are exempt increments (awqāṣ) in gold and silver—that is, an amount above the nisāb on which the due does not rise.
- Whether gold and silver are combined when assessing the nisāb, so that the two are treated as a single category, or whether each is considered separately.
- Whether a single owner is a condition for the nisāb, or two owners may be combined.
- The nisāb, the completion of a lunar year, and the rate due for metals taken straight from a mine.
The first issue—namely their dispute over the nisāb of gold—is as follows: the majority of scholars hold that zakāh becomes obligatory on twenty dinars by weight, just as it is obligatory on two hundred dirhams. This is the position of Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, Abū Ḥanīfah and their colleagues, Aḥmad, and the great body of jurists in the various centres of learning.
A second view—held by al-Ḥasan ibn Abī al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī and most of the adherents of Dāwūd ibn ʿAlī—maintains that no zakāh is due on gold until it reaches forty dinars, at which point one quarter of one tenth is payable, i.e., a single dinar.
A third group says that no zakāh is due on gold until its exchange value or price reaches two hundred dirhams; once it does, one quarter of one tenth is due, whether the weight of the gold is twenty dinars, less, or more. This applies so long as the amount of gold is under forty dinars; once it reaches forty, assessment is made on the gold itself, not on its exchange into dirhams or its market value.