al-Qāsim, from Mālik. Ibn Ḥabīb remarked, “I once saw Aṣbagh greatly impressed by it.”
Zakat is obligatory on jewellery held for trade. In assessing it one looks only at the weight of the gold or silver it contains, not at its crafted market value. The trader pays zakat on that weight every lunar year, provided the metal can be separated; if he is a mudir, he must also appraise the gemstones. A trader who is not a mudir pays the yearly zakat only on the gold or silver, and pays nothing on the gemstones until he actually sells them, even if he keeps them for many years.
If the jewellery contains gemstones that cannot be detached, and the owner is a mudir, the ruling is as follows:
• Should the piece be of gold or silver, and the gemstones predominate while the metal is slight—so that the item may lawfully be sold for gold or silver—he may value the entire piece, in either gold or silver as he prefers, and include that valuation with the rest of his assets when calculating zakat.
• If the gold is the larger component, he values the whole piece in gold and pays zakat on it at one-fortieth (2.5 %).
• If the combined amounts of gold and silver are so great that the item may not be sold for only one of them, and the gold and silver portions are roughly equal, he first appraises the piece in terms of other merchandise, then converts that appraised amount into whichever currency he chooses—gold or silver—and pays zakat on that figure. He must value it only with something for which its sale would be permissible.
If the owner is not a mudir, he owes no zakat on the piece until he sells it. When he does sell it, he assigns from the price what corresponds to the gemstones and what corresponds to the gold or silver. On the portion attributable to the gold or silver he pays zakat for all the past years, while on the portion attributable to the gemstones he pays for one year only.
Another opinion states that when the gold and silver are merely subsidiary to the gemstones, he pays zakat on the entire sale price for a single year.
Yet another view holds that the item is treated like ordinary merchandise: the mudir appraises all of it, pays zakat on it, and he does not