irrigates at a cost, incurring greater expense than the farmer who waters his crops for free. Thus, in His wisdom and mercy, Allah—glorified and exalted—reduced the zakah for the one who irrigates with outlay and effort.

The fourth category of zakah-able wealth is trade goods. A trade good is anything a person prepares for sale—real estate, fabrics, utensils, vehicles, and so forth. Nothing is excluded: whatever you place on the market—meaning you own it while waiting for profit—is merchandise, and you must pay zakah on it. The rate is a quarter of a tenth, the same as for gold and silver; that is, one part in forty, or two and a half in every hundred.

If you have money and want to know the zakah due, the calculation is simple: divide the total by forty, and the quotient is the zakah. So, if a person owns 40,000 dirhams, the zakah is 1,000 dirhams; on 120,000 riyals, and so on, the rule is the same. Whenever you wish to compute your zakah on cash, divide the sum by forty—the resulting figure is the amount owed.

These goods are called ʿurūḍ (chattels) because they are not permanent; they appear and vanish. Everything that comes and goes is termed an ʿaraḍ, as Allah the Exalted says: “You seek the fleeting gains of this worldly life” (al-Nisaʾ 4:94).

Commercial ambitions operate the same way among traders: a person buys a commodity not for its own sake but for the profit it will yield. Hence you may see him purchase it in the morning