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Ahmad explicitly allowed something that goes further than this: endowing property that can be used only by replacing the original asset. Abū Bakr ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz stated in al-Shāfī:

Al-Maymūnī reported from Ahmad: “If dirhams are endowed for one’s household, zakat is due on them; if they are endowed for the needy, no zakat is due.”

I asked, “What if a man endows a thousand dirhams in Allah’s cause?”

He replied, “If they are for the needy, nothing is due on them.”

I asked, “What if he endows them for horses and weapons?”

He replied, “This is a matter of uncertainty and ambiguity.”

Abū al-Barakāt said: “The apparent implication of this is that money may be endowed for lending, or for investment with the profits given in charity, as we have related from Mālik and al-Ansārī.”

He said: “Mālik’s position is that endowing money for lending is valid. The author of al-Tahdhīb and others mentioned this in their discussion of zakat. They held that zakat is due on it, just as they held concerning livestock endowed for the poor.”

Muhammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Ansārī said: “Dinars may be endowed, since they can be used only by expending the coins themselves. They are entrusted to someone for investment on a profit-sharing basis, and their profits are directed to the purpose designated by the endowment.”

It is well known that, in both lending and profit-sharing investment, the original property passes out of one’s possession and its replacement takes its place. The substitute was thus allowed to stand in its place in the interests of the endowment, even if this was not strictly necessary for the endowment.

This question is disputed within Ahmad’s school. Many of his followers prohibited endowing dirhams and dinars on the grounds mentioned by al-Khiraqī and those who followed him. They cited no explicit statement from Ahmad to this effect; al-Qādī and others transmitted this position only from al-Khiraqī and others.