Accordingly, if the zakat agent is a dhimmi (a non-Muslim subject under covenant), the matter must be examined. If he is assigned to collect public zakat, this is not permissible, because the role entails legal authority, which cannot validly be vested in one who is in disbelief. If he is assigned to collect private zakat, the matter must be examined further. If the amount of the principal wealth and the amount of its zakat are already known, it is permissible for the person assigned to receive it to be a dhimmi, because his role is stripped of any authority and confined to the rules governing a messenger.
If the wealth is of a kind whose amount and zakat have not been determined, it is not permissible for the person assigned to receive it to be a dhimmi, because he would have to count the wealth, yet his report concerning it would not be accepted.
If the zakat agent is delayed from reaching the owners of the wealth after their zakat has become due, then, if this occurs after his assignment has arrived and he has become occupied with collecting from others, they should wait for him, since he can collect it only from one group after another. But if he is delayed from reaching all of them and the delay exceeds the customary period for collecting their zakat, they must pay it themselves, because the command to deliver it to him is contingent upon his requesting it, and that obligation lapses when doing so is impossible.
It is permissible for any owner of wealth who undertakes to pay the zakat to determine it according to his own independent legal reasoning, if he is qualified to exercise it. If he is not qualified, he should seek a legal opinion from a jurist whose view he will follow; he is not required to consult two jurists. If he does consult two jurists, one of whom rules that the zakat is due while the other rules that it is waived, or one gives a certain amount while the other gives a higher amount, there are two possible views. The first is that he must follow the stricter of the two opinions, based on Aḥmad’s view that owners of wealth should assess their merchandise at the value most favorable to those entitled to zakat, without considering the price at which it was purchased. The second is that he may choose to follow whichever of the two jurists he wishes, based on his statement concerning a man who asked him about divorce and whom he directed to the scholars of Mālik’s school in search of a legal concession. He also said elsewhere, “Do not force people to follow your legal school.”
If the zakat agent arrives after the owner has acted according to his own independent legal reasoning, or according to the reasoning of the jurist he consulted, and the agent’s reasoning leads him to impose an amount that the owner had omitted, or an additional amount beyond what he had paid, then the agent’s reasoning takes precedence if the period during which payment was possible has not yet expired. But if that period has expired, the owner’s reasoning prevails.
If the agent has collected the zakat according to his own independent legal reasoning and determined, according to his view, whether it was due or waived, but the owner’s reasoning leads to the conclusion that an amount the agent waived was in fact due, or that more was due than the agent collected, then the owner remains personally responsible before Allah Most High to pay whatever the agent waived from the principal amount or left unpaid from the additional amount, because he acknowledges that he owes it to those entitled to zakat. Aḥmad said, according to a report transmitted by Ḥarb: “If the ruler does not take the full tenth from him, he must pay the full tenth and give it in charity.”
The second category of zakatable wealth is the produce of date palms and grapevines, along with analogous produce that is measured and stored, such as almonds, pistachios, and hazelnuts. No zakat is due on any other fruits or crops.