Chapter: Zakat on Gains Realised from Cash, Merchandise, and Livestock

Whoever, while free, comes into possession of property—whether ready cash or trade goods—by any avenue whatsoever, such as
• inheritance,
• a gift,
• a prize,
• a voluntary gratuity (ṣilah),
• diyah (blood-money) for homicide,
• arsh (indemnity) for a wound or other injury,
• a bequest,
• voluntary charity,
• a present,
• the rental income of a dwelling,
• the instalments paid by a mukātab (a slave in a manumission contract),
• a slave or a riding animal that is given to him,
• a woman’s bridal-gift (mahr),
• the yield of fruit on which no zakat is due or whose zakat has already been paid,
• a crop grown on land he purchased, whether for trade or otherwise, or on land he leased for non-trade purposes (as opposed to land leased for trade),
• property he retrieves from his slaves or from the mothers of his children that had been in their hands,
• the offspring of livestock on which no zakat is due,
• the yield of wool or milk,
• rikāz (buried treasure) from which the obligatory one-fifth has already been taken,
• a share of war booty,
• or any other unexpected benefit or grant among the various kinds of profit whose very substance he did not previously own—whether or not he owns the source that produced it—

no zakat is due on any of the above until the beneficiary actually takes possession of what he has acquired in specie, the price of whatever part of it was merchandise has been converted into ready cash in his hand, and a full lunar year thereafter passes while it remains in his possession.

Imam Mālik, may Allah have mercy on him, does not reckon the moment ownership is effected by contract—whether in marriage, in the rent collected for anything he has leased, or in the price of merchandise he sold but whose purchaser has delayed payment—as the starting point for the zakat year. In his view, no zakat is due on any of that until he has received it in cash and a further complete year has elapsed while it is still with him, except for what