Chapter on the Zakat of Gold and Silver

Zakat is not due on gold until it reaches twenty mithqals and the owner has possessed it for a complete lunar year. One mithqal weighs the equivalent of two dirhams, reckoned by count rather than by volume, and one dirham equals thirty-six grains of medium-sized, fully developed barley that fall within the normal range of weight.

Zakat is not due on silver until it amounts to two hundred dirhams, measured by weight. For this purpose the dirham equals one and four-tenths of the dirham that constitutes half a mithqal; this is the very dirham currently in use among us in al-Andalus. According to our weights, the whole nisab comes to thirty-five dinars’ worth of dirhams. Some authorities maintain that the weighing dirham is one and a half dirhams; on that view, zakat would become obligatory at thirty-seven dinars and four dirhams. The first opinion, however, is the sound, original position adopted by the majority of scholars.

Once the silver reaches the aforesaid amount and the gold reaches twenty mithqals, one-quarter of one-tenth (2.5 %) becomes due on each of them after a full lunar year has elapsed in the ownership of a free Muslim. Thus, from twenty mithqals one pays half a mithqal, and from two hundred dirhams five dirhams by weight, which corresponds to seven of our present dirhams—provided the silver is not alloyed with anything foreign. If it is mixed with an alien substance, then examine the matter: should the admixture be slight