of wealth as a facilitation for its owners, for every proprietor finds it easiest to give from the very type of property he actually possesses. Hence one report mentions that the Prophet made the blood-money payable by people whose wealth lay in fine garments in the form of garments themselves—as will be detailed in the Book of Ḥudūd.

Chapter Six: The Niṣāb of Trade Goods

In the view of those who obligate zakāt on trade goods, the niṣāb applies only to items expressly set aside for sale, as already defined, and its threshold is the same as the niṣāb for cash, since such goods represent the valuations of destroyed property and the principals of capital. The requirement that a full lunar year (ḥawl) pass likewise applies to trade goods according to those who make them zakāt-liable.

Mālik says: When a merchant sells his merchandise, he pays zakāt for one year only, just as is done with a collectible debt; this ruling concerns the merchant whose dates of purchase can be clearly established.

As for merchants whose buying and selling times cannot be fixed—those singled out by the term mudīr—Mālik rules that once a year has elapsed from the day they began trading they must appraise the merchandise currently in their possession. To that they add whatever cash they hold and any debts owed to them that they realistically expect to collect, provided they themselves do not owe an equivalent debt; this differs from his treatment of debts concerning a non-mudīr. If the total so gathered reaches the niṣāb, they pay the zakāt due, whether or not any part of that total has actually been converted into cash during the year and whether or not that cash by itself reaches the niṣāb. This is the narration of Ibn al-Mājishūn from Mālik.

Ibn al-Qāsim reports from Mālik that if a trader possesses no liquid assets and deals only in merchandise, nothing is due on the merchandise. Some scholars stipulate the niṣāb in this case, while others do not.

Al-Muzanī said: Zakāt on trade goods must be paid from the goods themselves, not from their cash price.

The majority—al-Shāfiʿī, Abū Ḥanīfah, Aḥmad, al-Thawrī, al-Awzāʿī, and others—maintain that mudīr and non-mudīr are subject to the same rule: whoever buys goods for trade and a full year passes over them must appraise those goods and pay zakāt on them.

Some scholars, however, hold that he pays zakāt on the purchase price, not on the current market value.

The majority impose no special obligation on the mudīr because the passing of a year is required over the same assets themselves, not merely over their category. Mālik, by contrast, treats the asset class here as though it were the very assets themselves so that the mudīr’s zakāt will not lapse altogether. Such a ruling more closely resembles an additional legal provision than one strictly derived from an established text; it is an instance of what is called unrestricted analogy (qiyās mursal), an analogy that is not anchored to a specific textual precedent but rather to the discernible sharʿī interest it serves. Mālik—may Allah have mercy on him—takes such considerations of public welfare into account even when they lack explicit textual foundations.