commercial activity. Hence, once ready cash (ʿayn) is converted into merchandise for resale, the merchandise assumes the same legal status as the cash itself: it is liable for zakat at the end of every lunar year just as the cash would have been.

Anyone who holds merchandise that he purchased for trade, simply waiting for profit whenever it may come, is deemed a mudir, and according to the majority of scholars he is treated exactly like an active mudir. This ruling is more fitting than regarding such goods as an outstanding debt that is assessed for only one year. As for Mālik’s opinion, I have already set it out.

If someone buys a commodity for personal use (quniyah), then later changes his intention to trade and eventually sells it, a new zakat year begins on the sale price once he takes possession of it. Conversely, if he buys an article for trade, then decides to keep it for personal use and later sells it, Mālik and his colleagues hold two views: one, that he must pay zakat on the sale price immediately upon receiving it; the other, that he begins a fresh lunar year with it after receipt.

When a trader’s capital is partly in active circulation and partly held back while he waits for his goods to find a market, the ruling depends on which portion predominates. If the larger share is actively circulated, he treats the whole as circulating capital, paying zakat on all of it under the mudir ruling. If the circulating portion is the smaller, each part retains its own treatment and each is assessed according to its respective cycle. Some scholars, however, make the minority share in either case follow the ruling of the majority share.

Whoever rents land with the intention of trade must follow the same procedure as someone who has purchased goods for resale. Whatever remains of what the land yields, after the legal tenth or half-tenth has been taken, is treated like any other trade commodity: when he sells it, he pays zakat on the sale proceeds once a full year has elapsed from the day he paid that agricultural zakat. On whatever he has not yet sold, no appraisal is required—unless he is a mudir; in that case he must appraise it when a year has passed from the day he paid the tenth or half-tenth, whether or not that date happens to coincide with the month in which he normally assesses his commercial holdings. This report was transmitted by Aṣbagh from Ibn