Islamic Fiqh > Zakat > General rules of zakat > Ownership of wealth: waqf, debts, deposits and mahr
Contents
Updated on 24 September 2026 at 4:12 PM
This second part of the general chapters on zakat covers ten sheets of the encyclopedia: zakat on waqf property, the definition of complete and incomplete ownership, its criterion and illustrations in the four schools, usurped and lost property, and the questions of debt (held by a solvent, an insolvent or a deferred debtor), mudaraba capital, deposited property and the woman's mahr. Each school position is reported with its evidence, its classical references and the traditions cited by the authors.
The chapter opens with a point carried over from the previous part: no zakat is due on war booty (ghanima), nor on anything under the authority of the imam, since it reverts to spending on the interests of the believers. This is also the Shafi'i position: the Hashiyat al-Sharqawi 'ala Tuhfat al-Tullab states that no zakat is due on the public treasury (bayt al-mal), because it has no specified owner. Likewise the yield of a waqf constituted for a general cause, as opposed to a waqf for specified persons: zakat is due on its yield, not on its corpus. Included in this is a waqf for the imam of a mosque or its muezzin, since no specific person was intended, but rather anyone who holds that quality (Matalib Awli al-Nuha, 2/16; Sharh Muntaha al-Iradat, 1/393; Hashiyat al-Sharqawi, 2/157-158; Nihayat al-Zayn, 1/168; Qawa'id al-Ahkam fi Masalih al-Anam, 1/168).
The second issue: zakat on waqf property. Some jurists, such as the Hanafis, require that zakatable wealth belong to a specified owner; what has no specified owner is exempt from zakat. The jurists therefore differed over waqf property that reaches the nisab and over which a year (hawl) passes: is zakat due on it?
The Hanafis: one of the conditions of zakat is ownership; hence no zakat on the grazing animals of a waqf nor on horses left free to graze, for lack of ownership. This is because zakat involves a transfer of ownership (tamlik), and such a transfer is inconceivable outside ownership (Bada'i' al-Sana'i', 2/397; al-Mabsut, 3/52; al-Jawhara al-Nayyira, 1/455; al-Durr al-Mukhtar, 2/281).
The Malikis: zakat is due on waqf property even for unspecified beneficiaries, such as mosques, the poor or the Banu Tamim, because in their view the waqf does not remove the property from the founder's ownership. If he endows a sum for loans which the needy borrower takes and returns in prosperity, the founder pays its zakat: the property remains his, or the supervisor's (nazir) who administers it. He pays each year as soon as a year passes from the day it came into his ownership, if the sum is a nisab by itself or combined with his non-endowed wealth; for not endowing a full nisab from the waqf does not spare him, each year, the zakat on what remains in it of his property, by estimation.
If someone borrows this sum, its zakat becomes due for one year after he receives it, even if he keeps it for several years. The borrower pays every year if he has wealth to include alongside the debt, and he also pays the zakat on its profit if he trades with it, counting from the day of the loan. In summary: the waqf money destined for lending, if nobody borrows it, its zakat falls each year on the supervisor or the founder; if it is borrowed, it is due for one year after receipt, like other debts, and the borrower pays each year his own zakat and that of his profit.
If the money stays with the borrower half a year, he makes a profit in it, returns the capital and keeps the profit for the second half, he pays at the completion of the second half, for the year is then reckoned to have passed since the loan. The rule of the year of the profit from lending thus holds even if the capital is returned before the year. This differs from the profit of the qirad: if the agent returns the capital before the year, he opens a new year from the day of the settlement (mufasala).
Likewise, whoever endows a seed meant to be sown every year on land he owns, rents or which is barren: he pays its zakat and distributes what exceeds the endowed quantity. The endowed seed remains to be sown every year; he pays the zakat of the grain and the produce that comes out, from the corpus itself if there is a nisab, even by adding it to the founder's grain if any exists, otherwise no zakat: the mentioned nisab and its zakat rest on the founder's ownership.
Likewise, whoever endows an animal of the zakatable species for distributing its milk or its wool, carrying loads or riding, or distributing its offspring: all of it is zakatable under the founder's ownership if there is a nisab, even by adding it to his wealth, with no difference between specified or unspecified beneficiaries. The supervisor stands in the founder's place, except that he pays only when the nisab is reached and cannot combine it with his own wealth, because he is not its owner.
As for the animal endowed for distributing its very body: no zakat if the waqf is for unspecified beneficiaries, neither on the whole nor on the parts, neither on the owner, who removed it from his ownership by bequeathing the distribution of the bodies, nor on the poor, who are unspecified. If the waqf is for specified beneficiaries, whoever's share reaches the nisab pays zakat counting a year from the day of the waqf, otherwise nothing. If the animal is endowed for distributing its sale price: no zakat, whether the waqf is for specified beneficiaries or not (al-Sharh al-Kabir ma'a Hashiyat al-Dasuqi, 2/88-89; al-Dhakhira, 3/55; al-Taj wa-l-Iklil, 2/332; Sharh Mukhtasar Khalil, 2/205-206; al-Bahja fi Sharh al-Tuhfa, 2/369; Hashiyat al-Sawi 'ala al-Sharh al-Saghir, 3/186).
Al-Mudawwana al-Kubra (2/343-344) reports, on the zakat of the dates of endowed palm groves and of endowed camels: Malik said that zakat is due on palm groves endowed in the path of Allah and on those endowed for a group, on their capital as well as otherwise. Asked about the man who endowed camels in the path of Allah, keeping their bodies and loading their offspring: is zakat taken from them as from camels that are not charity? He answered: yes, zakat is due on them. And about the man who endows a hundred dinars as a waqf to lend to people who return them: does he consider zakat due on them? He answered: yes.
Asked further about the man who put a hundred dinars in the path of Allah for distribution, or for the poor, with the year having passed: is zakat taken from them? He answered: no, all of this is to be distributed, it is not like the first case. Likewise camels, cattle and sheep placed in the path of Allah to be distributed, or sold with their price shared: if the year catches them before distribution, no zakat is taken from them, for they are to be distributed and not left grazing freely; that is my view for camels meant for sale whose price is shared, just as Malik said regarding the dinars. Ibn Wahb, from Ibn Lahi'a, from Ubaydallah ibn Abi Ja'far, said regarding palm trees whose bodies are charity (sadaqa): zakat is due on them, they are tithed every year together with the other palm trees. Malik said so, and Umar ibn al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him, and other Companions of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, acted accordingly: zakat is taken from their charity.
The Shafi'is and the Hanbalis distinguish the waqf for a general cause, without zakat, from the waqf for a specified person, on which they differ in two opinions. The Shafi'is: livestock endowed for a general cause, such as the poor, mosques, fighters or orphans: no zakat, without dispute, for it has no specified owner. If it is endowed for a specified person, single or collective, al-Nawawi said that, according to the sounder view, ownership of the body of the property endowed to Allah belongs to Allah, and no zakat is due without dispute, like the waqf for a general cause. According to the weaker view, ownership belongs to the beneficiary, and the obligation of zakat on him has two opinions: that it is due, because he owns it fully and settledly, like non-waqf property; or, and this is the sounder of the two, that it is not, because it is a weak ownership, as shown by his lack of power to dispose of the body of the property, like the mukatab and what he holds.
If one holds that zakat is due, may it be paid from another property? Two opinions related by the author of al-Bayan and others; the sounder is that this is not permitted, as the author of al-'Udda decided, because he cannot dispose of the property by removing it from ownership; the second: permitted, because it has been assimilated to free property for the obligation of zakat under this aspect. The author of al-Bayan concludes: the doctrine requires that, if zakat attaches to the very body, paying it from another property is permitted, otherwise not; and Allah knows best.
Derivative issue: endowed trees, palms and vines. Our companions: a waqf for a general cause, such as mosques, ribats, schools, bridges, the poor and the needy: no tithe (ushr) on their fruits; a waqf for specified persons: the tithe is due on their fruits once they reach the nisab, without dispute, and the beneficiary may pay it from the fruits themselves, since he owns them absolutely. Such is the presentation of our companions in all their transmissions. Ibn al-Mundhir relates in al-Ishraf, from al-Shafi'i and Malik, may Allah be pleased with them, the obligation of the tithe on fruits endowed in the path of Allah or for specified persons. Tawus and Makhul: no zakat. Abu Ubayd and Ahmad: if the waqf is for a general cause, it is not due; for a specified person, it is due; Ibn al-Mundhir adds: that is my view.
Shaykh Abu Nasr, cited by the author of al-Bayan in the chapter on the zakat of crops, says that what Ibn al-Mundhir relates from al-Shafi'i is not known from him among our companions, and Allah knows best. Our companions: such is the rule of the produce of endowed land: specified beneficiaries, zakat due without dispute; general cause, not due according to the school, due according to the report of Ibn al-Mundhir; the issue has a further section to be treated, if He wills, in the additional issues after the chapter on the zakat of crops; and Allah knows best (al-Majmu', 6/477-478; al-Muhadhdhab, 1/141-142; Hashiyat al-Sharqawi, 2/157-158; Nihayat al-Zayn, 1/168; Qawa'id al-Ahkam fi Masalih al-Anam, 1/168).
The Hanbalis: no zakat on property, grazing or not, endowed for unspecified beneficiaries: the poor, mosques, mujahidin, orphans, ribats or schools, and every charitable purpose to which no owner can be assigned; no zakat, for lack of ownership, like property bequeathed for non-charitable purposes, military expeditions and the like, or a bequest meant to buy what will be endowed. If the executor trades with it before spending it, the profit follows the capital toward the bequeathed destination; no zakat on either, for lack of a specified owner; if he loses it, he bears the loss for having contravened the authorization.
The waqf for one specified person, Zayd or Amr, or for a specified group, such as his descendants or the children of so-and-so: zakat is due on it, according to the generality of the hadiths and like his other property, according to the sound view of the school, since ownership passes to the beneficiary according to the sound view; another opinion holds no zakat, preferred in al-Kafi for its weakness. Zakat is due on the produce of land or trees endowed for a specified person if the produce reaches the nisab, for crops and fruit are not waqf, as proven by their sale. Zakat is taken from non-grazing property, such as crops and fruit, because it is his property, unlike grazing animals. If the specified beneficiaries are a group and each one's share reaches the nisab, zakat is due; if only some shares reach it, it is due on them; if none reaches the nisab, nothing is due, combination having no effect outside grazing animals (al-Kafi, 1/279; al-Sharh al-Kabir, 2/440; Kashshaf al-Qina', 2/196-197; Matalib Awli al-Nuha, 2/16).
Ibn Qudama, may Allah have mercy on him, states: if five wasq come into the hands of some beneficiaries of the waqf, zakat is due; if the waqf is for the poor, no zakat. In summary: a waqf of a fruit-bearing tree or cultivated land for specified persons, and a share of the fruit or grain reaching the nisab with one of them: zakat is due; Malik and al-Shafi'i said so. Tawus and Makhul are reported to have held no zakat, because the land is not his property. Our argument: he exploited a nisab from his land or his tree, so its zakat is due; the waqf remains on the body in principle and the fruit is free; ownership is complete there, including every act of disposal, and it is inherited: zakat is due, like the produce of rented land. Their argument that the land is not owned is refuted; even if conceded, he owns its benefit, which suffices for the obligation of zakat, as proven by rented land.
As for the poor: no zakat on what comes into their hands, whether the nisab of grains and fruits reaches one of them or not, nor before distribution even if the nisab is reached. The waqf for the poor is not fixed to any one of them: each may be deprived and replaced; ownership is established only by the handover and taking of what is given to him, as a new ownership: no zakat, like the recipient of zakat, of a gift or of a purchase. This differs from the waqf for specified persons: each has an established right in the benefit of the land and its produce; he must therefore be given it and it is not permitted to deprive him (al-Mughni, 7/540-541).
Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyya, may Allah have mercy on him, said: the madhhab of Ahmad holds that a waqf for a specific cause, such as the children of so-and-so, entails zakat on its very corpus: forty sheep endowed for the children of so-and-so, zakat is due on their corpus, explicitly reported from him; that is Malik's madhhab. According to one of his narrations, for one who endows land or livestock in the path of Allah: neither zakat nor tithe; this applies to the path of Allah, and is realized only if he gives it to his relatives. His companions drew from this the proof of the beneficiary's ownership of the body of the waqf, and counted it as one of the school's two narrations. The school holds another opinion: no zakat on the corpus of the waqf, due to its insufficiency; an opinion chosen by the qadi in al-Mujarrad and by Ibn Aqil, and it is the view of most of al-Shafi'i's companions. The waqf for a general cause, jihad, the poor and the needy: no zakat according to the school of Ahmad and that of al-Shafi'i; Malik, however, obligates zakat on it (Majmu' al-Fatawa, 31/235-236).
The second condition for zakat to be due: that ownership of the property be absolute. Milk in language is the verbal noun of malaka: a man is said to own a thing when he holds it, able to dispose of it at will; "mallakahu tamlikan": he made him own it; "tamallaka": he seized it by conquest (Lisan al-Arab, 10/492; al-Qamus al-Muhit, 1/1232; Taj al-'Arus, 2/346, entry m-l-k).
According to the jurists, Ibn al-Humam and others defined it as "a capacity that the Lawgiver establishes from the outset for disposal, except for an impediment". "From the outset" excludes the capacity of the agent (wakil), the executor and the administrator; "except for an impediment" excludes sold movable goods before receipt, whose sale is impossible because of the impediment of prohibition (Sharh Fath al-Qadir, 6/248; al-Bahr al-Ra'iq, 5/278; Ghammuz 'Uyun al-Basa'ir, 3/361).
Al-Jurjani, may Allah have mercy on him, defines ownership as "a legal connection between a person and a thing, granting him freedom to dispose of it and barring others from doing so". A thing may be owned without being free to dispose of; but it is never free to dispose of without being owned. Absolute ownership is that which includes no mention of a specific cause: one who says "this is my property" without further specification; if he says "I bought it" or "I inherited it", it is no longer a claim of absolute ownership (al-Ta'rifat, 295).
Imam al-Subki, may Allah have mercy on him, reports that the reality of ownership puzzled many theorists, and that some erred by defining it as "disposal", for the interdicted person owns without disposing, just as the guardian disposes without owning. The correct definition is: "a rational matter, or rather a legal ruling estimated in a thing or a benefit, requiring the person to whom it is attributed to have the ability to benefit from it and to receive compensation for it as such". It is a "legal ruling" by consensus, because it follows legal causes; it is "estimated" because it rests on the attachment of the Lawgiver's permission, a non-essential attachment that is not a real attribute, but is estimated in the thing or the benefit upon the realization of the causes that establish ownership.
"In a thing or a benefit": benefits are owned like things, and the lease contract applies to them. "Requires his benefit" excludes the disposal of judges and executors, who dispose without benefiting themselves, but for the owners. "And the compensation" excludes permissions of hospitality, permitted without owned compensation, and exclusive rights over mosques, ribats and market seats: no ownership despite the ability to dispose. "As such" indicates that it may fail owing to an impediment affecting the interdicted person, who holds ownership without the ability to dispose because of an external cause; the essential aptitude being present, the external accident does not contradict it.
This applies to restricted ownership, which is called ownership only loosely: it is the ownership of servants over what is attributed to them; the true owner is Allah, the Most High. Our imams reported the formulation of Imam al-Haramayn in al-Shamil: no ownership of bodies is established for servants, however broadly it is understood; after reporting that, according to al-Murtada, the meaning of ownership is that the owner is one whose act is permitted if he is capable, which includes the ownership of Allah and that of men, mentioned within the question of the creation of acts (al-Ashbah wa-l-Naza'ir, 1/252-253).
Imam al-Qarafi, may Allah have mercy on him, presents the 110th difference between the rule of ownership and that of disposal: delimiting ownership puzzled many jurists; it is a general term arising from varied causes: sale, gift, charity, inheritance. It is not disposal: the interdicted person owns without disposing; each of the two is more general than the other under one aspect and more specific under another. Disposal may exist without ownership, as with the executor, the agent and the judge; ownership without disposal, as with minors and the insane; they combine in the adult of sound mind with full capacity. The revealing formula: "a legal ruling estimated in a thing or a benefit, requiring the ability of the person to whom it is attributed to benefit from it and to receive compensation for it as such" (al-Furuq, 3/347; Mawahib al-Jalil, 4/223-225; Hashiyat al-Furuq, 3/348).
In his commentary, al-Qarafi specifies that the benefit is intended without the mere utility: the benefit of the houses of waqf schools falls under permission, like hospitality, permitted to whoever fulfills the waqif's condition, unlike the regime in which ownership is established for the one who fulfills the waqif's condition, to the point that he may take compensation for it. He also discusses whether ownership belongs to the declarative discourse (wad') or the prescriptive discourse (taklif); it appears to the author that it is one of the five legal qualifications, a particular permission attached to particular dispositions and to taking compensation, and one may reformulate: "ownership is a legal permission over a thing or a benefit, requiring its holder's ability to benefit from it and to take compensation for it as such"; some place it in the declarative discourse, and the author answers that it may belong to both (26th difference).
Ibn al-Shatt al-Maliki defines it as "the legal ability of a person, by himself or through his deputies, to benefit from the thing or the benefit, and to take compensation for the thing or the benefit". Such is the meaning of ownership in language and among the jurists (Hashiyat al-Furuq, 3/348).
Complete ownership is designated by several expressions: "absolute ownership", in al-Kasani al-Hanafi (Bada'i' al-Sana'i', 2/9); "settled ownership" (al-Rawd al-Murbi', 1/373); "completeness of ownership" (al-Hawi al-Kabir, 3/354; al-Kafi of Ibn Qudama, 1/279; Sharh Muntaha al-Iradat, 2/177; Kashshaf al-Qina', 2/196). The jurists' formulations varied: is complete ownership the holding of both the body and the hand, enabling disposal (the view of the Hanafis and the Hanbalis), or is the body sufficient without requiring the hand (the view of Zufar and the Shafi'is)?
The Hanafis: complete ownership is that of both the body and the hand, as Ibn Abidin reported (al-Bahr al-Ra'iq, 2/218; Hashiyat Ibn Abidin, 2/259-263). Al-Haddadi al-Hanafi, in his Sharh of Mukhtasar al-Quduri, says: complete ownership combines ownership and the hand; ownership without the hand, like goods sold before receipt or the dower before receipt, or the hand without ownership, like the mukatab and the debtor: zakat is not due on them (al-Jawhara al-Nayyira, 2/153): such is incomplete ownership.
Al-Kasani expresses complete ownership as absolute ownership: "to own both the body and the hand, the view of our three masters; Zufar said: the hand is not a condition, and that is al-Shafi'i's view; hence no zakat is due on dimar property according to us, by the convergence of both" (Bada'i' al-Sana'i', 2/9). The purport of the Maliki school: zakatable wealth must be owned in full ownership, composed of two things: ownership and its completeness; hence no zakat on the usurper or on the finder of a lost object, for lack of ownership; nor on the slave or the debtor, for lack of completeness (al-Sharh al-Kabir ma'a Hashiyat al-Dasuqi, 2/44). Complete ownership means that the person controls the disposal of what he owns.
The Shafi'is, for their part, do not require the owner to be able to dispose, according to the sound view: ownership suffices, like goods sold before receipt: zakat is due without disposal, except by receipt (Kifayat al-Akhyar, 170). The Hanbalis: complete ownership designates what is in his hand, with no right of another attached, which he disposes of as he chooses and whose benefits accrue to him (al-Mubdi', 2/295; Kashshaf al-Qina', 2/196; Matalib Awli al-Nuha, 2/14). Ibn Muflih adds in al-Mubdi': incomplete ownership is not a complete blessing, yet zakat is due only in exchange for a complete blessing, according to Abu al-Ma'ali.
Incomplete ownership is that in which one of the conditions of complete ownership is missing according to each school, as will be detailed. Among the Hanafis, complete ownership combines two things: ownership of the body, meaning the property belongs to him, and the wealth being in his hand; zakat is due when body and hand are combined. Incomplete ownership is that in which one of the two is missing: the body without the hand, like goods sold before receipt or the dower before receipt; or the hand without ownership, like the mukatab and the debtor. Zakat is due only when both combine, for wealth from which one cannot benefit does not make its holder rich, and zakat is due only on the rich (Bada'i' al-Sana'i', 2/9; al-Jawhara al-Nayyira, 2/153; al-Bahr al-Ra'iq, 2/218; Hashiyat Ibn Abidin, 2/259-263).
Wealth owned and held, allowing any disposal: this is complete and settled ownership in a person's hand. Held without security against rescission, like the property of the mukatab; held without truly belonging to him, like the debtor's; or truly owned but not held, like goods sold before receipt: no zakat in any of these cases according to the Hanafis, complete ownership, that is the combination of ownership and hand, being required for zakat to be due.
Among the Malikis, the criterion of complete ownership is twofold: to be owned, and to be complete so that the holder can dispose of it and make it grow; if one of the two is missing, it is incomplete ownership. Complete ownership is therefore composed of two things: ownership and its completeness. No zakat on the usurper, the finder of a lost object or the depositary, for lack of ownership; nor on the slave or the debtor, for lack of completeness (Sharh Mukhtasar Khalil, 2/179-181; al-Sharh al-Kabir ma'a Hashiyat al-Dasuqi, 2/44; Manh al-Jalil, 2/41-42).
Among the Shafi'is, the criterion is single: to be owned. The owner's ability to dispose is not required, according to the sound view: ownership suffices, like unsold goods before receipt: zakat is due without disposal, except by receipt. Al-Husayni adds in Kifayat al-Akhyar (170): one who buys zakatable property without receiving it until the year passes while it is in the seller's hand, the school obliges zakat on the buyer for the completeness of ownership, and the majority decides thus; others say it is never due, because of the weakness of the property and its exposure to rescission and deprivation; others still that there is a dispute, as with usurped property.
Among the debt situations illustrating the absence of complete ownership: if a person owns zakatable wealth and is burdened by debts engulfing it or reducing it below the nisab, the most explicit view, which al-Shafi'i explicitly held in most of his newer books, is that the debt does not prevent the obligation of zakat, whether deferred or due, of the same kind or not. If the judge sequesters his property and the year passes during the sequestration: like usurped property, subject to dispute, unless the judge has assigned to each creditor a specific property and granted him authority over it without his collecting before the year has passed: the view decided by the majority is the absence of zakat, because of the weakness of an ownership subject to the creditors; others say: like the dispute over usurped property.
Among the Hanbalis, the criterion of complete ownership combines four conditions: that the property be in his hand; that no right of another be attached to it; that he be free to dispose of it; that its benefits accrue to him. Incomplete ownership lacks one of these four. Property owned and held, disposed of freely, with no right of another: complete and settled ownership; held without security against rescission, like the mukatab's property; held burdened by another's right, like the debtor's; or truly owned but not held, like goods sold before receipt: no zakat in any of these cases (al-Mughni, 4/25-26; al-Mubdi', 2/295-296; Kashshaf al-Qina', 2/196-198; Sharh Muntaha al-Iradat, 2/177-179; al-Insaf, 3/14-16).
Among the Hanafis, no zakat is due on the mukatab's property: he is owner in only one respect, the hand, for his ownership belongs in reality to his master and is not safe from rescission; his ownership alternates between him and his master. If he pays the price of his manumission, he is freed of it; otherwise it reverts to the master. Just as the master owes nothing on it, the mukatab owes nothing on it either.
Nor is it due on the property of one burdened by a debt engulfing his wealth: incomplete ownership owing to the creditor's right; even if he has cash in hand, it belongs in reality only to the creditor. If his wealth exceeds the debt, he pays zakat on the surplus once it reaches the nisab, for his freedom from need. It is not due on goods sold before receipt: truly owned but not held. Nor on lost property, property fallen into the sea, property usurped without proof against him, or property buried in a desert whose location has slipped from the owner: no zakat until it returns to him in one of these cases, for the body belongs to him without the hand (al-Hidaya, 1/97; al-Jawhara al-Nayyira, 2/153; Hashiyat Ibn Abidin, 2/259-260; Durrar al-Hukkam, 2/203-206).
Al-Kasani specifies in Bada'i' al-Sana'i' (2/9-10) the definition of dimar property, from which no benefit can be drawn although ownership persists: the runaway slave, the lost animal, lost property, property fallen into the sea, property confiscated by the ruler, a denied debt without proof later proven by a public acknowledgment, and property buried in the desert whose location has slipped from the owner; if it is buried in the house, zakat is due by consensus; for the vineyard and the large dwelling, the shaykhs differ. He invokes the tradition reported from Ali, may Allah be pleased with him, and attributed to the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him:
"No zakat on the property of the dimar", that is, property from which no benefit is drawn although ownership persists, named after the emaciated camel (dimar) that cannot be used although alive.Attributed to Ali, may Allah be pleased with him; al-Zayla'i declared it gharib and Ibn Hajar did not find it from Ali
The argument is that these properties are unusable for the owner, his hand not reaching them, and that property from which one cannot benefit does not make one rich, zakat being due only on the rich, according to the hadith. The property of the destitute traveler (ibn as-sabil) is usable through the hand of his deputy, as is property buried in the house, reachable by digging, unlike the desert, whose entire expanse cannot be dug. Likewise a debt acknowledged by a solvent person is reachable.
Zakat being a function of ownership, which exists, it is due: the holder is not summoned to pay it immediately, his hand being far from it, without this delay canceling the obligation, as with the ibn as-sabil. A denied debt without proof divides the shaykhs: for some, zakat is due, it being reachable through the proof, and one who refrains from producing it forfeits his capability without excuse; for others it is not, the witness possibly being impious, unless the judge knows the debt and judges by his knowledge, in which case it becomes usable. If the debtor acknowledges secretly and denies publicly: no zakat, according to Abu Yusuf, since the secret acknowledgment brings no benefit; he is like a denier both secretly and publicly.
If the acknowledging debtor is bankrupt but not judicially adjudicated, zakat is due by unanimous opinion: the bankrupt can earn and borrow, and bankruptcy may cease from one moment to the next, wealth coming and going. If he is judicially adjudicated bankrupt, the same rule according to Abu Hanifa and Abu Yusuf. Muhammad denies it: bankruptcy, in his view, is real and increases the insufficiency by closing the door of dispositions, people refusing to deal with him. Abu Hanifa rejects bankruptcy: it is not realized, in his view, during one's lifetime, and the adjudication of it is invalid. Abu Yusuf holds bankruptcy real, but the bankrupt remains generally capable through earning: the debt remains generally usable, the effect of bankruptcy merely postponing the claim to the time of ease, like a deferred debt: zakat is due. A deposit handed over then forgotten by the depositor: if the recipient is an acquaintance, the zakat of the past is due from him when he remembers, forgetting a kindness being rare and the way of access remaining; if he is a stranger, no zakat of the past, access being impossible.
No zakat either on the debt of manumission by contract (kitaba) nor on the diya owed by the 'aqila: the former is not a real debt, for the master is not a debtor to his slave and guarantee is not valid in it; the mukatab remains a slave until the last dirham, his earning being like that of a free man, so that the price of manumission is never the master's full ownership but an incomplete one. The diya belongs to the heir of the victim but remains unstable: the death of one member of the 'aqila annuls it; the obligation of zakat, however, is a function of absolute ownership. On this basis is explained Abu Hanifa's view on debts arising not as compensation for commercial wealth (inheritance burdened with a debt, a bequest of debt) or as compensation for what is not wealth (the mahr owed by the husband to the wife, the khul' compensation owed by the wife, a settlement for intentional homicide): no zakat.
Among the Malikis, the condition of zakat, on the corpus as on the rest, is full ownership. No zakat on the usurper, unless he holds compensation, in which case he pays; on the depositary; on the finder of a lost object, even though the property is truly in their hands, for lack of completeness of ownership; on the slave, whom the master may seize, a right being attached to him; on the master for what is in his slave's hand, since he who can seize it is not deemed its owner; on the debtor, whom the creditors may seize; on booty before division, for lack of establishment; on the usurped property itself: the owner pays nothing, unable to make it grow.
When the owner takes back the usurped property, the most famous view is that he pays the zakat of one single year at the moment of taking, even if the usurper returns it with its profit: it then becomes like a loan debt whose creditor pays a single zakat for all the past years upon receipt; the usurper, for his part, pays if he has the means, on account of his guarantee of the property. As for the debtor, the debt removes the annual zakat of his tangible wealth, whether it consists of a body or of merchandise, due or deferred, for lack of completeness of ownership; but for the mine, livestock and crops, zakat is due on the bodies themselves and the debt does not remove it.
Zakat is due among them: on deposited property when the owner takes it back, he paying for all the past years even if absent from the depositary; this is the famous view. According to another opinion, one single year upon receipt, for lack of growth; it is also reported that he opens a new year after taking it back. On property handed to a merchant with or without wage, a known daily wage: zakat is due every year, his trading counting as the owner's: he is his agent. If the owner is a manager (mudir), the goods in the agent's hand are valued every year and he pays with his own wealth, even if absent and unaware of the amount: he postpones the zakat until his presence and pays for the past; al-Kharshi: without dispute.
On buried property whose owner lost track of it, years having passed and then found: the sounder view is that he pays for one single year, not for all the past years, with no difference between the desert or elsewhere. On lost property found: one single year, not the past: the famous view. On property entrusted for the profit of the agent without guarantee of what may perish: if the owner takes it back after years, he pays for one single year according to the famous view, since he could not move it himself: it resembles a found object. Unless he is a manager: he pays every year with his own wealth if he knows the property intact; no zakat on the agent, even if he has compensation: the property is neither his nor under his guarantee. If the profit belongs to the owner, the latter pays every year; if the profit is shared, the owner or the agent pays (Sharh Mukhtasar Khalil, 2/179-181; al-Sharh al-Kabir ma'a Hashiyat al-Dasuqi, 2/44; Manh al-Jalil, 2/41-42).
Among the Hanbalis, completeness of ownership is required in general, for incomplete ownership is not a complete blessing, yet zakat is due only in exchange for a complete blessing. Complete ownership designates what is in his hand, with no right of another, disposed of as he chooses, with its benefits accruing to him. No zakat on the debt of manumission, which is unstable: he may render himself insolvent and refuse payment, and guarantee is not valid in it; on grazing animals and the rest endowed for unspecified beneficiaries, the poor, a mosque, a ribat or a school, for lack of ownership, like property bequeathed for non-charitable purposes, military expeditions and the like.
Likewise property bequeathed for charitable causes or to buy what will be endowed: if the executor trades with it before spending it, the profit follows the capital toward the bequeathed destination; no zakat on either, for lack of a specified owner; if he loses it, he bears the loss for having contravened the authorization. Nor is it due on the mudarib's share of the profit before division, even if his ownership through the profit's appearance is upheld: for lack of establishment, the year does not begin before division or its equivalent.
Zakat is due among them: on grazing animals endowed for a specified person, Zayd or Amr, by generality and like his other property; in at-Talkhis: the more similar view is the absence of zakat, preferred in al-Kafi for its weakness; on the produce of land or trees endowed for a specified person if the produce reaches the nisab, crops and fruit not being waqf, as proven by their sale. Zakat is taken from non-grazing property, such as crops and fruit, because it is his property, unlike grazing animals, whose ownership cannot be transferred. If the specified beneficiaries are a group and each one's share, from the produce of the land or the tree, reaches the nisab, zakat is due; likewise if the share of some of them reaches it; if none reaches the nisab, nothing is due, combination having an effect only on grazing animals.
The owner pays the zakat of his share of the profit like that of the capital, the profit belonging to him by appearance and following his wealth, unlike the mudarib; he owes no zakat on the mudarib's share, which he does not own. Example: a free Muslim man entrusts a thousand (dirhams) in mudaraba with the profit shared in halves; the year passes and the capital produces two thousand: the owner owes the zakat of two thousand, capital and profit share. On property bequeathed to a specified person: whoever holds it when the year passes pays, the testator or the legatee; if the benefit of a nisab of grazing animals is bequeathed, the owner of the capital pays as if it were present (al-Mughni, 4/25-26; al-Mubdi', 2/295-296; Kashshaf al-Qina', 2/196-198; Sharh Muntaha al-Iradat, 2/177-179; al-Insaf, 3/14-16).
Among the Shafi'is, zakat is due upon: one whose property went astray; whose property was usurped; stolen with recovery impossible; deposited and denied by the depositary; fallen into the sea; the man captured and kept from his livestock, a prisoner among disbelievers or Muslims. Likewise the found object in the first year, remaining the property of its owner; goods bought but not received until the year passes in the seller's hand: the school obliges zakat on the buyer for the completeness of ownership; livestock or other zakatable property pledged: zakat due when the year passes, for the completeness of ownership (al-Majmu', 5/339-343).
Imam al-Shirazi, may Allah have mercy on him, writes in his chapter on requiring complete ownership for zakat: it is not due on what one does not own completely, such as the property in the mukatab's hand, who has no right to dispose of it and who resembles a foreign owner, nor on livestock endowed for him, for...
What follows rests on where ownership transfers in the waqf: two opinions. It passes to Allah, and no zakat is due; or it passes to the beneficiary, with two opinions on its zakat: that it is due, because he owns it fully and settledly, like non-waqf property; or that it is not, because it is a weak ownership, as shown by his lack of power to dispose of the body of the property, like the mukatab and what he holds (al-Muhadhdhab, 1/141-142).
Chapter on usurped and lost property: zakat is not due before its return. If it returns without growth: two opinions. According to the old view (al-qadim), no zakat, for it left his hand and his disposal, like the mukatab's property; according to the new view (al-jadid), it is due, for it is property he can claim and whose restitution can be compelled, like property in his agent's hand. If it returns with growth: Abu al-Abbas says zakat is due by a single opinion, the exemption resting only on the absence of growth, which has occurred. The sounder view: both opinions, for zakat did not lapse for lack of growth: the males of the livestock have no growth yet zakat is due on them; it lapsed for the diminution of ownership through the exit of the hand and the disposal, and upon return what was lost of hand and disposal did not come back.
If the owner is taken prisoner and kept from his property: two ways. For some of our companions he is like the usurped owner, the prevention being present between him and his property: two opinions. For others, zakat is due by a single opinion, since he can sell it to whom he wills: like the depositary. If a lost object comes into a finder's hand who announces it for a full year without choosing to take ownership, and one holds that he becomes owner only by choice according to the sound view: two ways. For some, it is as if it never came into the finder's hand: two opinions. For others, no zakat at all: his ownership is not established after the announcement, the finder being able to remove it by choosing ownership, like the mukatab's property.
If he owns livestock or other zakatable wealth and a debt engulfs it or reduces it below the nisab: two opinions. The old view: no zakat, ownership not being established, the judge being able to seize it for the creditors. The new view: zakat is due, for zakat attaches to the thing and the debt to the liability, neither preventing the other, like the debt and the arsh (compensation for bodily injury). If he is placed under sequestration over his property: three ways: if the property is livestock, zakat is due, growth having occurred, otherwise two opinions like the usurped; or zakat is due by a single opinion, sequestration not preventing the obligation, like the sequestration of the prodigal and the insane; or, and this is the soundest, two opinions like the usurped, since he is kept from it.
The first view is refuted: growth having occurred, he is nevertheless prevented from disposing of it and kept from it. The second is refuted: the sequestration of the prodigal and the insane does not prevent disposal, their guardian disposing on their behalf, whereas the sequestration of the bankrupt does prevent it: the two cases differ. The Shafi'is therefore judge, according to the sound view, that zakat is due on owned property without current disposal: usurped, sequestrated, a captive kept from his property (al-Muhadhdhab, 1/141-142; al-Majmu', 5/339-343).
Imam al-Nawawi, may Allah have mercy on him, says: if one's property goes astray, is usurped, stolen with recovery impossible, deposited and denied, or falls into the sea, there are four situations concerning the obligation of zakat. The soundest and most famous involves two opinions, the sounder being the new one: obligation; the old: no zakat. The second situation: the decisive ruling of obligation, famous. The third: if it returns with growth, it is due, otherwise not. The fourth: if it returns with growth it is due, otherwise dispute; the evidence for all of this is understood from the author's words.
The return of part of the growth counts as no return; return without growth means that the usurper destroyed it without being able to replace it. If he compensates it, or something perishes in his hand that would have perished in the owner's hand, it counts as the return of the growth itself, by agreement, as Imam al-Haramayn and others explained; those who decide the obligation and its absence interpret the other text. Our companions: the dispute bears only on the obligation to pay zakat after the property's return, for the past period or not; there is no dispute over the absence of obligation before the return, the companions having explicitly agreed. If the property perishes after years before its return, zakat lapses according to the view of obligation, for he was not enabled, and perishing before being enabled cancels it.
The dispute over usurped livestock bears on its grazing in the hands of both the owner and the usurper: if it grazes in the hand of either, there is dispute over the effect of the usurper's grazing and his fodder. According to the old view, the year is broken by usurpation and loss, and restarts upon return; the new view maintains it. If one has forty sheep and one is usurped or lost and then returns: according to the absence of zakat on usurped property, the year restarts upon its return, whether before or after its completion; according to zakat being due on usurped property, if he finds it before the year's completion this builds, and if he finds it after, he pays zakat on the forty.
If the zakat of past states is obliged, the condition is that the property not fall below the nisab through what is owed for zakat: that the livestock have offspring, or that he possess other sufficient wealth. If the property is exactly the nisab and years pass, the majority says that no zakat is due on what exceeds the first year, for the view of obligation is the new one, which makes zakat attach to the thing itself: the nisab falls from the second year, and nothing is due, unless multiplication maintains the nisab. Some indicate a dispute derivable from the decisive way of the obligation of zakat on the usurped. If one buries his property, forgets it, then remembers after years or after a year: it is like the lost property: the previous dispute, and this is the famous view; another way decides the obligation, forgetting being no excuse since he was negligent, as al-Rafi'i relates; no difference between burying it in his house, his safe or elsewhere; and Allah knows best.
Second issue: the imprisoned owner kept from his livestock: two famous ways. The soundest with the companions is the decisive ruling of obligation, for the effectiveness of his disposal; the second: the dispute of the usurped, which al-Mawardi and al-Mahamili declare erroneous. The same whether the captive is among disbelievers or Muslims.
Third issue: the found object in the first year remains the owner's property: no zakat on the finder; on the owner, the previous dispute over the usurped and the lost. Without announcement, this is the ruling for all the years. With announcement for a year, the ruling depends on whether the finder becomes owner by the completion of the year of announcement, by the choice of ownership, or by disposal: a known dispute in this chapter. If he becomes owner at the deadline: no zakat on the owner; two opinions on the finder. If he becomes owner only by choice, which is the school: failing that, the property remains the owner's; two ways on his zakat, the soundest with the companions being both opinions as in the first year; the second: no zakat at all, for the finder's full power to take ownership.
If the finder has taken ownership: no zakat on the owner, the property having left his ownership; he is entitled to its value on the finder's liability. Two opinions on the zakat of this value: considering it a debt, or lost property. If the finder owns nothing else, the dispute over whether a debt prevents zakat will come later. If he owns other wealth sufficient for zakat, two famous opinions: the sound, by the companions' agreement, is the obligation when a year passes from taking ownership of the found object; the second: no zakat, for the weakness of awaiting the owner. Both theses rest on whether the owner can retrieve the thing in kind after the finder's ownership, or only in value: two famous opinions. If he can retrieve it in kind, the finder's ownership is weak, unsettled: no zakat, otherwise it is due. If one holds that the finder becomes owner only through disposal and he has not disposed: as if he had not taken ownership; or one says he owns only by it; and Allah knows best (al-Majmu', 5/339-343; al-Hawi al-Kabir, 3/314; al-Bayan, 3/291-292).
The other case is the debt of a bankrupt, an insolvent, a denier or an absent one. First situation: the debt is held by a solvent person who acknowledges it and pays willingly. The jurists differed: does zakat fall on the creditor, who owns it, or on the debtor, who disposes of it and benefits from it, or on neither of the two, the owner's hand not being on it and the debtor, even if his hand were on it, not being its owner? If it falls on the creditor, is it due every year or only once after receipt? Four opinions:
The first opinion: the zakat of the past years is due upon receipt, not before. This is the madhhab of the Hanafis and the Hanbalis, and the view of Ali, may Allah be pleased with him, al-Thawri, al-Awza'i, Abu Thawr and Ibn Abd al-Barr among the Malikis. The proof of the obligation and of paying the past: the property belongs to him and he can benefit from it, so its zakat is due like that of his other wealth.
The proof of the absence of obligation before receipt: it is a debt fixed in the liability, whose payment is not due before receipt, like the debt of an insolvent; and zakat follows the path of ease (muwasa), yet there is no ease in paying the zakat of wealth one cannot benefit from. The deposit, however, counts as what is in his hand, the depositary being his delegate in safekeeping, the depositary's hand counting as his. The Hanafis: zakat is due on the debt of a solvent acknowledger, without obligation to pay before receipt.
The proof of the obligation: the debt is in another's liability through his own act, like the deposit in another's hand; zakat being due on the deposit, it is due on the debt as well; and because it is property allowing him the dispositions of release and transfer, like the thing itself. The proof of the absence of early payment: the debt diminishes the thing, as shown by the fact that paying the debt's zakat from the thing itself would not be permitted; the debt can be disposed of only with the specific debtor, whereas the thing from every direction. Zakat being due on the deficient, since if the debt is extinguished the zakat lapses, requiring early payment would require the complete from the deficient, which is impossible, like extracting white from black. It is a debt in the liability whose zakat is not accelerated, like the deferred debt or that of an insolvent (al-Tajrid of al-Quduri, 3/1335-1337; Mukhtasar Ikhtilaf al-'Ulama', 1/434; Sharh Mukhtasar al-Tahawi of al-Jassas, 2/344; Tuhfat al-Fuqaha', 1/293-294; Bada'i' al-Sana'i', 2/9-11).
Al-Kasani presents the three ranks of debts according to Abu Hanifa, as most of our shaykhs said: the strong debt, the weak debt and the middle debt. The strong debt is that arising as compensation for commercial wealth: the price of trade goods or trade slaves, the yield of commercial capital; zakat is due on it without dispute, but he is not summoned to pay the zakat of the past until he has received forty dirhams: for every forty received, he pays one. According to Abu Yusuf and Muhammad, any receipt, small or large, entails its zakat.
The weak debt is that arising as compensation for a non-thing, inheritance or bequest, or as compensation for what is not wealth: the mahr, the khul' compensation, a settlement for qisas, the price of manumission; no zakat before full receipt and a year passing after receipt. The middle debt is that arising as compensation for non-commercial wealth: the price of a service slave, of formal garments or of a craft; two narrations: the original one holds zakat due before receipt, without summons below two hundred dirhams, then payment of the past; the narration of Ibn Sama'a from Abu Yusuf from Abu Hanifa holds no zakat before receiving the two hundred and a year passing since receipt, and this is the sounder of the two narrations.
Abu Yusuf and Muhammad equalize all debts as strong debts: zakat is due before receipt, except the diya of the 'aqila and the property of manumission, which bear no zakat before receipt and a lapsed year; for the others are the creditor's absolute ownership, body and hand, enabling him to receive by taking the substitute thing: zakat is due on them as on other absolutely owned things, except that he is summoned to pay only what he has received, according to their school regarding the thing exceeding the nisab, unlike the diya and the manumission property, an incomplete ownership. Abu Hanifa holds two aspects: the debt is not wealth but an obligatory act of transferring ownership, except as compensation for commercial wealth, which takes the ruling of wealth, the substitute standing in place of the substituted; or, if it is owned wealth, it is wealth that does not bear receipt: a juridical wealth in the liability, without zakat, like the dimar. Analogy would thus exclude all debts, except compensation for commercial wealth, which became receivable through its object. On the zakat of what is received: Abu Hanifa requires nothing below forty dirhams; the other two require the zakat of any receipt.
The Hanbalis in the madhhab: zakat is due on the debt of a solvent person capable of paying who pays willingly, whether it comes from a loan, the price of trade goods, a dower or a sale not received; he may dispose of it by release and transfer, but the payment is due only upon receipt, and he then pays for the past. For it is a debt fixed in the liability, like that of an insolvent; and zakat follows ease. Whether or not he intended, by keeping it, to escape zakat: he pays the past, for the property belongs to him and he can benefit from it, its zakat being due like that of his other wealth (Masa'il al-Imam Ahmad, narration of his son Abdallah, 156-157; al-Mughni, 4/23-24; al-Mubdi', 2/296; Sharh al-Zarkashi, 1/398; al-Insaf, 3/18; Kashshaf al-Qina', 2/198-199; Sharh Muntaha al-Iradat, 2/174-175; al-Rawd al-Murbi', 1/374; al-Kafi of Ibn Abd al-Barr, 93). Al-Karkhi specifies that this applies if he owns nothing but the debt; if he owns other wealth, what he receives of it counts as derived wealth, added to what he holds; and Allah knows best.
Imam Ibn Abd al-Barr, may Allah have mercy on him: whoever lent a thing taken out of his hand, or sold on deferred payment the price of trade goods without managing them, pays nothing before receipt; upon receipt, he pays one year's zakat, whether one or several years elapsed with the debtor; he is not required to pay from his other wealth. I prefer that, if the debtor is solvent, he pay every year, without obligation according to Malik, whether the creditor can collect or not, until receipt. My view: if the debtor is solvent and the term has fallen due, and he left it without collecting, its zakat is due; if it is a deposit he can take back, zakat is due on it; if he left it for years then received it, he pays the zakat of the past years (al-Kafi, 93).
The second opinion: zakat is due immediately, even without receipt: the Shafi'i school in the new view, Ahmad according to one narration. It is reported from Umar, Uthman, Ibn Umar and Jabir, may Allah be pleased with them, and from Tawus, al-Nakha'i, Jabir ibn Zayd, al-Hasan, Maymun ibn Mihran, al-Zuhri, Qatada, Ibn Shubruma, Hammad ibn Abi Sulayman, Ishaq and Abu Ubayd al-Qasim ibn Sallam: payment is due immediately, since he can take the debt and dispose of it, its zakat being due like that of the deposit (al-Amwal, 526-529; Ikhtilaf al-'Ulama', 1/112; al-Hawi al-Kabir, 3/263; al-Bayan, 3/291-292; al-Majmu', 5/309-310; al-Mughni, 4/23-24).
When the stipend was paid out, Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, took the zakat on the absent man's property from its present holder, and that of the present.Reported by Abu Ubayd in al-Amwal (1211)
"When the legal charity falls due, estimate your debt and what you own, add it all together, then pay its zakat." (Umar ibn al-Khattab)Reported by Abu Ubayd in al-Amwal (1212)
"Charity is due on a debt you could claim from its solvent holder and which you leave him out of modesty or courtesy: zakat is due on it." (Uthman ibn Affan)Reported by Abu Ubayd in al-Amwal (1213); al-Bayhaqi in al-Sunan al-Kubra (7408)
In al-Bayhaqi's version: "Pay its zakat, that is, the debt's, when it is in the hands of the solvent."
"Every debt you hope to collect: its zakat is upon you whenever the year passes." (Ibn Umar)Reported by Abu Ubayd in al-Amwal (1214)
"Whoever lends wealth owes its zakat every year, if it is in trusted hands." (Abdallah ibn Abbas and Abdallah ibn Umar)Reported by al-Bayhaqi in al-Sunan al-Kubra (7409)
Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him, was asked about the zakat of an absent man's wealth: "Pay on behalf of the absent as for the present." The man said: then the wealth perishes. He answered: "The perishing of the wealth is better than the perishing of the religion."Reported by al-Bayhaqi in al-Sunan al-Kubra (7410)
Jabir ibn Abdallah was asked whether the zakat of a debt owed by a man is due: "Yes."Reported by Abu Ubayd in al-Amwal (1215)
"Any debt you hope for: its zakat is paid." (Jabir ibn Zayd). Uthman ibn al-Aswad asked Mujahid, who said: "Pay zakat on what you see coming out." Al-Hasan and Ibrahim: "Pay the zakat of the debt held by a solvent person." Maymun ibn Mihran said: "When zakat falls due, look at all the wealth you own and every solvent debt, compute it, deduct your own debts, then pay zakat on the rest."Reported by Abu Ubayd in al-Amwal (1216-1219)
Abu Ubayd adopts these elevated traditions of Umar, Uthman, Jabir and Ibn Umar, then the word of the Successors: al-Hasan, Ibrahim, Jabir ibn Zayd, Mujahid and Maymun ibn Mihran: the debt held by trustworthy solvent persons is paid every year with the present wealth, for it then counts as what is in his hand and in his house. Those who defer until receipt can barely manage the accounting: the debt may be claimed in portions of five, of fifteen dirhams, more or less, and every dirham claimed requires knowledge of the years, months and days elapsed; hence weariness and negligence. Hence the precaution adopted: paying with the whole wealth at the beginning of the year, the preferred view, the other way remaining tenable without deviation. All of this concerns the hoped-for debt held by trustworthy people (al-Amwal, 531).
Imam al-Shafi'i, may Allah have mercy on him: a debt held by an absent person counts as absent trade and the deposit: zakat in each. The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, having legislated zakat on the year, all wealth is either zakatable according to the legislation, or without zakat, like derived wealth. If a man has a debt and the year passes, the creditor being able to take it, the debtor present, solvent, not denying and not forcing him to litigation, he must take it or pay its zakat, as with the deposit. If he can take it only through fear or the debtor's insolence, or if the latter is absent or detained: upon receipt he pays the zakat of the past years, nothing else being permitted to him.
Likewise absent livestock, the deposit and buried property whose location is forgotten, without dispute. If the absent property is in trade and an agent can receive it where it is, it is valued where it is and its zakat paid; likewise buried property and the debt. Whenever one says "he can only pay its zakat for its lapsed year as long as he is able", if the property perishes after the year while he was able, its zakat is a debt upon him. Whenever one says "he pays only upon receipt", if the property perishes before he can receive it, no zakat of the past is due from him: the thing bearing the zakat perished before he could pay (al-Umm, 2/51).
Al-Amrani, may Allah have mercy on him: if the debt is due from a solvent person who pays willingly, as soon as he is asked, zakat is due according to the new view, and this is the soundest, for it is wealth he can receive: like the deposit. The owner then pays its zakat at the completion of every year if it is a nisab: like deposited property (al-Bayan, 3/291).
The third opinion: zakat is due after receipt for a single year only, even if the property remains for years with the debtor: the Maliki school, Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz, and reported from Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib, 'Ata' ibn Abi Rabah, 'Ata' al-Khurasani and Abu al-Zinad, as well as a narration from Ahmad (al-Mughni, 4/23; al-Insaf, 3/18). They say: zakat is due after receipt for a single year; for obliging the annual zakat of growing wealth in another's hand would lead to its consumption by zakat. This is why zakat is annulled on hoarded merchandise wealth (qunya): it would have been obliged on wealth that zakat would consume. Zakat is only an ease upon wealth that can be made to grow without it usually exhausting them. The place of payment is a single year, unless he delayed receipt to flee zakat: then every past year.
Imam Malik, may Allah have mercy on him, in al-Muwatta', chapter on the zakat of debt:
"This is your month of zakat: let whoever has a debt settle it, so that your wealth is cleared and zakat is paid from it." (Uthman ibn Affan)Reported by Malik in al-Muwatta' (1/253)
Malik also reports from Ayyub ibn Abi Tamima al-Sakhtiyani that Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz wrote regarding wealth seized unjustly by some governors: order for its value to be returned to its owners and its zakat of the past years taken; then he followed with a letter that only a single zakat would be taken from it, for it was dimar property. Yazid ibn Khasifa asked Sulayman ibn Yasar about a man owning wealth and an equal debt: is zakat due on it? He answered: no. Malik said: what we have no dispute about, regarding debt, is that its holder pays no zakat before receipt; even if he remains counted years with his debtor, only one zakat is due. If he receives only part of it, no zakat is due on that part; if he owns other wealth, zakat is due on it and he pays together with what he received of the debt (al-Muwatta', 1/253).
Imam Abu Umar ibn Abd al-Barr comments: Malik expounded his madhhab on debt in this chapter of his Muwatta' and indicated part of its evidence. Debt and unmanaged trade goods belong, in his view, to a single chapter, with a single zakat for the past years, following Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz on dimar property, for which he ruled a single zakat; the absent debt is like the dimar, the origin of the dimar being what is absent from its owner. As for goods, in his view for one who does not manage them, and in the view of some of his companions for one who manages them, they fall under the ruling of the mentioned debt. This madhhab has little share in rational examination, what opposes it being stronger.
And as for the debtor holding another's debt: if he can collect it, he is like the deposit and pays every year, since leaving it then equals leaving it in his house; if he cannot collect it, the scholars' word on this chapter has already passed, and precaution is preferable; Allah grants success to what is right, He is my protector and the best of protectors.
The Malikis set four conditions for the single year's zakat. The first condition: the origin of the debt is a thing in the owner's hand or his agent's, then lent to the debtor, a loan or trade goods held and sold for a known term. If the origin is a grant in the giver's hand, such as a gift, the dower in the husband's hand or the khul' compensation in the wife's hand, no zakat is due before a year has passed from receipt.
The second condition: collecting the debt from the debtor; without collection, no zakat. Malik: without dispute, one pays nothing before receipt, and a single zakat even after counted years. In support: the debt may perish without its holder knowing whether he will be able to claim it; he is therefore not charged to pay zakat from his other wealth; and it may perish before receipt: one would have paid the zakat of what never reached him. Al-Baji adds: the owner of property absent in a distant town is not charged to pay its zakat from what he holds, not knowing whether he will reach it; if it is in the hand of an agent or a trader, whose hand counts as his, it would be within his guarantee: not charging him to pay from his hand for property held by another or guaranteed is safer and more just. And uncollected property cannot be made to grow, zakat having been legislated only on growing wealth (al-Muntaqa, 2/100; Sharh al-Zarqani, 2/106).
The third condition: what is received is a thing, gold or silver, not merchandise; merchandise is paid only after its sale. Zakat attached to the thing runs according to the state of the property on the day zakat becomes due; the zakat of the debt is due on the day of its receipt. What is received as gold follows the ruling of gold, as silver the ruling of silver, and what was received as merchandise follows the ruling of merchandise. The fourth condition: what is received constitutes a complete nisab; received in portions below the nisab, he pays upon completion of the nisab. If the receipt is below the nisab but completed by property whose year had lapsed at the time of receiving the debt, zakat is due: a hundred dirhams received of the debt and another hundred whose year has passed: zakat is due.
The proof of this condition: one does not pay on a receipt below the nisab, since it is possible he receives nothing else of his debt, and zakat would not have been obliged below the nisab. If he owns other property whose year has passed, paid or not, at the nisab or below, and the total with the debt receipt reaches the nisab, he pays on the debt receipt: it met the cause of the year by resting on property whose year and nisab have passed, or the debt receipt itself reaches the nisab and counts as a benefit whose year has lapsed (al-Muntaqa, 2/100; Sharh Mukhtasar Khalil, 2/191-193; al-Sharh al-Kabir ma'a Hashiyat al-Dasuqi, 2/59-63; al-Sharh al-Saghir ma'a Hashiyat al-Sawi, 3/156-157; al-Khulasa al-Fiqhiyya, 1/376-377). Ibn Abd al-Barr restates here the same position already cited: no zakat before receipt, a single year upon collection, preference for annual payment with a solvent debtor without obligation, and obligation if the term has fallen due and collection is possible (al-Kafi, 93).
The fourth opinion: al-Shafi'i in the old view and Ibn Hazm; reported from Aisha, mother of the believers, Ikrima and 'Ata', may Allah be pleased with them: no zakat on debt in any way; upon receipt, a new year opens.
"There is no zakat on debt." (Aisha, mother of the believers, from Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Qasim ibn Muhammad from his father)Reported by Ibn Abi Shayba in al-Musannaf (7115)
"There is no zakat on debt." (Ikrima, from Sufyan al-Thawri from Abu al-Zinad)Reported by Ibn Abi Shayba in al-Musannaf (10258)
"There is no zakat neither on the holder of the debt nor on the one who owes it." ('Ata')Reported by Ibn Abi Shayba in al-Musannaf (10261)
For it does not grow, like hoarded merchandise. Al-Shafi'i says in the old view, transmitted by al-Za'farani: "I know no report establishing zakat on debt; in my view zakat is not due on it, for he has no power over it and it is not a specified thing." In the Masa'il of Ahmad ibn Hanbal, according to the narration of his son Abdallah, al-Shafi'i used to say: there is no zakat on debt (al-Bayan, 3/291; Masa'il Ahmad ibn Hanbal, p. 157).
Ibn Hazm specifies in al-Muhalla (6/103-106): the debt, due or deferred, from a solvent acknowledger able to receive it, from a denier, or from an insolvent acknowledger or denier, all is identical: no zakat, however many years, before receipt; upon receipt, a new year opens as with other benefits, livestock, gold and silver alike. The palm and the crop are never zakatable on it, for neither crop nor fruit has come out of it. The creditor has against his debtor only a number inscribed in the liability and a description, no body of wealth: the gold and silver may still be in the mine, the silver still dust, the livestock perhaps not yet created: how could their zakat be obligatory?
A fifth opinion exists: zakat falls on the debtor and lapses from the creditor owner; reported from Ibn Abi Layla, Hammad and Ibrahim al-Nakha'i. Abu Ubayd reported it (al-Amwal, 526). Abu Yusuf: Ibn Abi Layla used to say the debt's zakat falls on the debtor (Ikhtilaf Abi Hanifa wa-Ibn Abi Layla, p. 123). Muhammad ibn Nasr al-Marwazi reports that Ibn Abi Layla and Hammad ibn Abi Sulayman said so (Ikhtilaf al-'Ulama', 122). Abu Ubayd reports from Muhammad ibn Kathir, from Hammad ibn Salama, from Hammad, from Ibrahim: "Zakat falls on the one who consumes its yield" (al-Amwal, 1249; Ibn Zanjawayh, 1792; al-Muhalla, 6/100). An earlier narration with the same chain specifies, however, that it concerned a debt its holder delays and withholds: its zakat then falls on the one who consumes its yield (al-Amwal, 1227): it therefore does not fall within our subject, which concerns the solvent, acknowledging, non-delaying debtor.
The disagreement rests on two causes. First: there exists no explicit text in the Quran or the Sunna, nor consensus, obliging or canceling zakat on debt. Al-Amin al-Shinqiti, may Allah have mercy on him, says: "We know no text from the Book, the Sunna or a consensus regarding the zakat of debt, nor regarding the debt preventing the obligation of zakat on the debtor when it engulfs his wealth or reduces it below the nisab, apart from reports from some of the pious predecessors" (Adwa' al-Bayan, 2/141). Second: the reports of the Companions and the Successors contradict one another; when they contradict, none is proof against the other; hence the multiplicity of narrations in the schools of fiqh.
Second situation: the debt is held by an adjudicated bankrupt who acknowledges it, a denier, a delayer or a usurper. The jurists agree: no zakat before receipt. They then differ, at the moment of receipt: the zakat of the past years, of a single year, or none at all, a new year opening: several opinions.
The first opinion, that of the Shafi'is in the most apparent view, of the Hanbalis in the madhhab, of Zufar among the Hanafis and of Ibn Shabban among the Malikis: after receiving the debt of the bankrupt, the denier or the delayer, he pays for the past years, the wealth having returned to him. His ownership is then complete and its zakat is due, as with the deposit forgotten with its depositary, or imprisonment keeping him from his property. It is property he can claim and whose restitution is compelled, like property in his agent's hand (al-Bayan, 3/291-292; Hilyat al-'Ulama', 3/80; Bada'i' al-Sana'i', 2/9; Majma' al-Anhar, 1/287).
The Shafi'is in the sound view: a debt from a solvent person who acknowledges it secretly without public proof: zakat is due when the year passes, without obligation to pay before receipt; upon receipt, he pays for the past. A debt from an open denier or an acknowledging insolvent: payment of the past upon receipt (al-Bayan, 3/291-292; Mughni al-Muhtaj, 2/162). Imam al-Shafi'i, may Allah have mercy on him: if the property is denied, usurped, swallowed by the sea, and time passes then he becomes able, only two opinions. Either no zakat until a year passes from receipt, for he was overpowered; or zakat is due, his ownership never having left, for the past years. If he receives its equivalent, he pays for the past; if he has no equivalent but property to add or appraise, as soon as the whole combined establishes the zakat, he pays for the past (Mukhtasar al-Muzani, 52; al-Hawi al-Kabir, 3/314; al-Sharh al-Kabir, 2/593).
Al-Nawawi restates the four situations: property astray, usurped, stolen with recovery impossible, a denied deposit, falling into the sea. The soundest involves two opinions, the sounder being the new one: obligation; the old: no zakat. The second situation: the decisive ruling of obligation, famous. The third: if it returns with growth, it is due, otherwise not. The fourth: if it returns with growth it is due, otherwise dispute. The return of part of the growth counts as no return; return without growth means destruction without possible compensation; compensation, or the loss of something that would have perished with the owner, counts as the return of the growth itself by agreement, according to Imam al-Haramayn. The dispute bears only on payment for the past period after return; the companions explicitly agree: nothing is due before the return; perishing before being enabled cancels the zakat.
The dispute over usurped livestock bears on its grazing in both hands: if the old view is adopted, the year is broken by usurpation and loss and restarts upon return; the new view maintains it. Forty sheep one of which is usurped or lost and then returns: according to the first thesis, the year restarts upon return, whether before or after completion; according to the second, found before the year's completion this builds, found after: zakat on the forty. If the past states are obliged, the condition is not to fall below the nisab through what is owed for zakat: offspring of the livestock or other sufficient wealth. If the property is exactly the nisab and years pass, the majority: nothing is due on what exceeds the first year, the nisab falling from the second year unless there is multiplication; some indicate a dispute derivable from the decisive way of the obligation on the usurped. Buried property then forgotten and remembered after years: like the lost: the famous dispute; another way decides the obligation, forgetting being no excuse for the negligent, as al-Rafi'i relates; no difference between house, safe or elsewhere; and Allah knows best.
Second issue: the imprisoned owner kept from his livestock: two famous ways; the soundest: the decisive ruling of obligation for the effectiveness of disposal; the second: the dispute of the usurped, which al-Mawardi and al-Mahamili declare erroneous. The same among disbelievers or Muslims. Third issue: the found object in the first year remains the owner's: no zakat on the finder; on the owner, the previous dispute; without announcement, the ruling holds for all the years; with announcement for a year, the ruling depends on the finder's ownership, by the year's deadline, by choice or by disposal: a known dispute. If he becomes owner at the deadline: nothing on the owner, two opinions on the finder. If he becomes owner only by choice, which is the school: failing that, it remains the owner's; two ways, the soundest: both opinions as in the first year; the second: never, for the finder's full power.
If the finder has taken ownership: nothing on the owner, the value being owed on the finder's liability; two opinions on the zakat of the value: debt or lost property. If he owns nothing else, the dispute over the debt will come. If he owns other sufficient wealth: the sound, by the companions' agreement, is the obligation after the year elapsed from taking ownership; the second: no, for the weakness of awaiting the owner. Both theses resting on the owner's return in kind or only in value; and Allah knows best (al-Majmu', 5/339-343; al-Hawi al-Kabir, 3/314; al-Bayan, 3/291-292).
The Hanbalis in the madhhab: zakat is due on the debt of an insolvent, of a delayer, on a deferred debt, and on a denied debt with or without proof, on account of the validity of transfer (hawala) and release; he pays for the past upon receipt. Abu Ubayda reports from Ali and Ibn Abbas the generality, like his other wealth.
It is also due on the usurped for the whole year or part of it, in the usurper's hand or that of his transferee, or of the co-partner: it is property disposable by release and transfer, like the solvent person's debt; the owner pays for the past upon receipt, and the usurped property is claimed from the usurper together with the zakat of the time of usurpation, like its loss which he guarantees, as well as its diminution. It is due on lost property, like the found object: the zakat of the year of announcement on its owner when he finds it, that of after on the finder, the object entering his ownership upon the completion of the year of announcement with its condition, like inheritance, becoming like his other wealth.
It is due on the stolen, the buried, the forgotten in his dwelling or elsewhere, known property whose holder is unknown, inheritance known or unknown, and the pledge: the pledger takes the zakat out of the pledge if the pledgee consents, or if he has nothing else to pay the zakat from, like the arsh of the slave's offense weighing upon his religion; otherwise he pays it from elsewhere, the pledgee's right being attached to it. It is due on the sale, even with an option of rescission, before the buyer's receipt, debt or thing: the zakat of the debt falls on the creditor, not on the debtor (al-Mughni, 4/24; Sharh al-Zarkashi, 1/398-399; Kashshaf al-Qina', 2/200-201; Sharh Muntaha al-Iradat, 2/172-174; Matalib Awli al-Nuha, 2/9-10).
The second opinion: no zakat on the debt of the denier, of the solvent delayer nor of the insolvent: the Hanafi school, the Shafi'is according to one view, the Hanbalis according to one narration, Ibn Abd al-Barr and other Malikis, and Ibn Hazm; this in summary. The Hanafis: no zakat on dimar property: any property from which one cannot benefit although ownership persists, but which left the owner's hand with a return expected most of the time: the runaway slave, the lost animal, lost property, property fallen into the sea, property confiscated by the ruler, a denied debt without proof later proven by a public acknowledgment, property buried in the desert whose location has slipped from the owner. If it is buried in the house, zakat is due by consensus.
"No zakat on the property of the dimar."Attributed to Ali, may Allah be pleased with him, and attributed to the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him; al-Zayla'i in Nasb al-Raya (2/334) declares it gharib, and Ibn Hajar in al-Diraya (1/249) did not find it from Ali
The argument: these properties are unusable for the owner, his hand not reaching them; property from which one cannot benefit does not make one rich, and zakat is due only on the rich, according to the hadith; and the cause of zakat is growing wealth, yet there is no growth without the capacity of disposal, which is absent here. A debt acknowledged by a solvent person is reachable: zakat is due. A denied debt without proof: no zakat; with proof, the shaykhs differ: for some it is due, reachable through the proof, and one who refrains from producing it forfeits his capability without excuse; for others not, the witness possibly being impious, unless the judge knows the debt and judges by his knowledge, in which case it becomes usable. The debtor acknowledging secretly and denying publicly: no zakat, according to Abu Yusuf, the secret acknowledgment bringing no benefit.
The acknowledging debtor bankrupt but not judicially adjudicated: zakat due by unanimous opinion, the bankrupt being able to earn and borrow, bankruptcy ceasing from one moment to the next. If he is judicially adjudicated: the same rule according to Abu Hanifa and Abu Yusuf. Muhammad denies it: bankruptcy, in his view, is real and increases the insufficiency by closing the door of dispositions. Abu Hanifa rejects it: bankruptcy is not realized, in his view, during one's lifetime, and the adjudication of it is invalid. Abu Yusuf holds bankruptcy real, but the bankrupt remains generally capable through earning: the debt remains generally usable, the effect of bankruptcy merely postponing the claim to the time of ease, like a deferred debt: zakat is due. A deposit handed over then forgotten by the depositor: if the recipient is an acquaintance, the zakat of the past is due from him when he remembers, forgetting a kindness being rare; if he is a stranger, no zakat of the past, access being impossible (Bada'i' al-Sana'i', 2/9-10; al-Hidaya, 1/97; al-Muhit al-Burhani, 2/534-535; Sharh Fath al-Qadir, 2/166-167; Majma' al-Anhar, 1/287; al-Durr al-Mukhtar, 2/266-267).
Abu Umar ibn Abd al-Barr: according to reasoning, whatever is established in a non-owner's liability bears no zakat on the owner, as well as the denied claim and every holder of a liability; the owner is not required to pay zakat on what is in another's liability, usurper or not. As for buried property at an accessible place, or not held in any liability, or the found object: my view is that its owner pays for the past when he finds it, for it is within his ownership, without another's liability, unless the finder has consumed it: it then passes into his liability. Such is the view of Sahnun, Muhammad ibn Salama, al-Mughira and a narration from Ibn al-Qasim (al-Istidhkar, 3/162).
The third opinion: zakat is due after receipt for a single year only, even if the property remains for years with the debtor: the famous Maliki school, Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz, 'Ata', al-Hasan, al-Awza'i and Ahmad according to one narration (al-Mughni, 4/23; al-Insaf, 3/18). The Malikis: lost property and the like, usurped, stolen, buried in a desert or elsewhere, so long as the owner has lost it or it is in an unknown place: no zakat, unable to make it grow. Once taken back from the usurper, from the thief, or found, the most famous view: a single year at the moment of taking, even if the usurper returns it with its profit: it becomes like a loan debt whose creditor pays a single zakat for the past years (Sharh Mukhtasar Khalil, 2/180; al-Sharh al-Kabir ma'a Hashiyat al-Dasuqi, 2/45-46; Hashiyat al-Sawi, 3/138).
Malik in al-Muwatta' reports Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz's letter on unjustly seized wealth: restitution and zakat of the past years, then a single zakat, for it was dimar property; and his ruling on debt: no zakat before receipt, a single zakat after years, nothing on a received portion except supporting wealth (al-Muwatta', 1/253). Abu Umar ibn Abd al-Barr: the dimar is the absent property its holder cannot take, whose location he does not know and which he does not hope for. The scholars differed on the zakat of sudden wealth, which is the dimar: Malik, on the end of Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz's view, sees a single zakat when he finds it, becomes able over it or receives it; 'Ata', al-Hasan, Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz and al-Awza'i said so (al-Istidhkar, 3/161-162).
The fourth opinion: Ibn Hazm and al-Shafi'i in the old view, and a narration from Malik; reported from Aisha, mother of the believers, Ikrima and 'Ata', may Allah be pleased with them: no zakat on debt in any way; upon receipt, a new year opens. The texts have been cited above. For the debt does not grow, like hoarded merchandise. Ibn Abd al-Barr adds: perishing wealth, that is, the denied debt, the usurped, the buried in a desert, the lost in a wilderness or elsewhere, whose owner had despaired then found after years: he pays for each year; it has been said: no zakat for the past; a single year is preferable. All of this is sound from Malik; it has been reported from Ibn al-Qasim, Ashhab and Sahnun that he pays for the past years; but they distinguish what is guaranteed from what is not: usurped properties, upon return, a single year; deposits and what is guaranteed to no one: the past years, and this is the school's most equitable view (al-Kafi, 93-94; al-Muhalla, 6/103-106; al-Musannaf of Ibn Abi Shayba, 7115, 10258, 10261).
The second issue: the deferred debt. The Hanbalis and the Shafi'is, in the most apparent view, hold it similar to the insolvent's debt: the owner cannot collect it immediately, so the previous dispute applies. Against the most apparent view among the Shafi'is: its zakat is due at the year even if he has not received it (al-Mughni, 4/24; Sharh al-Minhaj, 2/40; al-Hawi al-Kabir, 3/263). Among the Hanafis and the Malikis, no distinction has been found between the deferred debt and the due debt.
The third issue: the zakat of mudaraba capital: who pays it and when, on views detailed by school. The Hanafis: the mudarib pays the zakat of his profit share when the year passes, if he holds the nisab and the profit has appeared. Example: he buys a slave girl for two thousand, the capital being a thousand: he pays five hundred at the year, and the owner two thousand five hundred. The mudarib is entitled to demand from the owner the division, so as to obtain his profit share as complete and settled ownership obliging zakat (Mukhtasar Ikhtilaf al-'Ulama', 1/437; al-Binaya, 10/105).
The Malikis distinguish the associate (qirad) present in the owner's town from the associate absent from it. The associate present, really or legally, the capital being elsewhere but the owner informed of its state: the owner pays the management zakat. Three opinions on the timing: the first, preferred by Khalil and al-Dardir and presented as the school's apparent view: every year from his other wealth than the qirad capital, so as not to reduce the agent, the profit compensating him; this is a harm to the agent unless he consents, on condition that the owner be a manager, whether manager or monopolizer. The second, the adopted view: no payment before the settlement (mufasala), then for all the past years, like the absent one. The third: after settlement but for a single year, like the debt.
The associate absent from the owner's town, his state being unknown: the owner pays nothing, even after years of absence, until his return, unless he orders the agent to pay every year during the absence, charging the zakat to the owner from the capital. Failing that, the owner, after his return, pays for all the years of absence, beginning with the year of return: he charges what is due for that last year, then pays the equivalent of each preceding year, after deducting what was taken as zakat, if the capital of each preceding year was equal to or greater than the last; if it was less, he pays its proportion after deducting the zakat taken.
Example: twenty-one dinars entrusted, the agent absent five years, found intact upon return: one begins with the first year then the second, not the third, the nisab no longer being reached. If the owner, the agent, or both, are monopolizers (muhtakir), the owner pays one year after receipt, even after years with the agent. Livestock: its zakat is paid in advance, present or absent, the agent monopolizer or manager; the same applies to crops; the zakat is charged to the owner and is not compelled by profit, unlike loss. The agent, for his part, pays the zakat of his profit share, even if below the nisab, for a single year after receipt, even after years, whether both are managers, both monopolizers or differing, under five conditions: that the qirad remain in his hand a year beyond the day trade began, failing which no zakat; that the agent and the owner be free; Muslim; without debt; and that the capital with the profit form a nisab or more, or be below the nisab while the owner holds what completes it, its zakat following the owner's.
Example of the last condition: ten dinars entrusted, the owner being entitled to a hundredth of the profit, the capital producing a hundred: the owner pays nothing, his capital and share amounting to eleven; the agent does not pay either, but opens with his ninety-nine a year from the time of receipt (al-Jami' of Ibn Yunus, 1/105; al-Sharh al-Kabir ma'a Hashiyat al-Dasuqi, 2/76-79; al-Dhakhira, 3/28; Sharh Mukhtasar Khalil, 2/199-201; Hashiyat al-Sawi, 2/172-175; al-Bahja fi Sharh al-Tuhfa, 1/578).
The Shafi'is: a thousand dirhams entrusted in qirad with the profit shared in halves; the year passes and the capital reaches two thousand: the question rests on when the mudarib becomes owner of the profit, two opinions. The first, the school's most apparent view: he becomes owner through the division; the whole zakat then falls on the owner; if he pays it from the capital itself, from where is it charged? Three aspects: from the profit, for it is among the capital's expenses, like the wage of the transporter, the weigher and the measurer; from the capital, zakat being a debt on his liability according to one of the two opinions, any payment from the capital being charged to the capital like other debts; from both together, zakat being due in the capital and the profit: example, capital of two hundred and profit of one hundred, two thirds of the amount paid from the capital and the remaining third from the profit.
The second opinion, contrary to the most apparent: the mudarib becomes owner through the profit's appearance: the owner then owes the zakat of one thousand five hundred, paid without dispute according to the foregoing, and he never owes the zakat of the agent's share. If the zakat is paid from the qirad capital, the three aspects above apply. As for the agent according to this first opinion, three situations. The soundest: the zakat of the five hundred is due from him, for he is an owner able to rescind and divide at any moment, and to dispose of his share after division: zakat is therefore due from him. But he is not required to pay it, not knowing whether it will be handed over to him, like absent property; he may pay it from elsewhere; if he wishes to pay it from the capital, two opinions: it is not permitted to him and the owner may prevent it, the profit being the capital's protection which he might lose; or it is permitted without authorization, both having contracted under the regime of Islam and the obligation of zakat.
All of this when the owner and the agent are both subject to zakat. If only the owner is: according to "everything belongs to the owner before division", the whole zakat falls on him; according to the other opinion, that of the capital and of his profit share, without completing his share with the agent's, who is not subject to zakat, the combination being invalid. If only the agent is: "everything belongs to the owner before division": no zakat; on his share, the previous dispute; if it is due, it is if his share reaches the nisab or is completed by his wealth, without combination. It is never permitted to him to pay the zakat from the capital, without dispute, the owner not having contracted for that. The second way: the question falls under the usurped and the denied, the agent not being immediately master of full disposal. The third: the decisive absence of zakat, for the weakness and non-establishment of his ownership, exposed to loss: he resembles the mukatab.
Al-Nawawi, may Allah have mercy on him: the school holds the obligation upon the agent, with five aspects for the opening of his year on his share. The soundest is the text: from the appearance, ownership being established from then. The second: from when the capital is charged to the owner for zakat, the profit being realized only then. The third: from the division, his ownership being established only then: an erroneous view though famous, its purport being the absence of zakat before division, the agent becoming after division an owner full and settled; the thesis of a year opening only at division amounts to denying zakat before division. The fourth: his year is the capital's year: plain error, a man's year never building on another's, except the heir according to a weak view, who stands in the deceased's place. The fifth: from the agent's purchase of the goods: error.
Al-Nawawi reports from our companions: the agent's year being complete and his share below the nisab while the total reaches it, if we uphold the combination between the two monies, zakat is due from him, otherwise not, unless he owns wealth of the same kind completing the nisab; this if the year does not open at division, otherwise the combination is set aside. The obligation being established on the agent, payment is not required of him before division: such is the school, decided by the author, the Iraqis and the majority; after division, he pays for the past. One view requires immediate payment, division being possible; the sound is the first view: the property being neither in his hand nor at his disposal, it does not exceed the absent property whose safety is running and whose loss is feared (al-Majmu', 6/60; al-Muhadhdhab, 1/161).
The Hanbalis: no zakat on a mudarib's profit share before division, even if his ownership through the profit's appearance is upheld, for lack of establishment: the profit protecting the capital, his ownership is incomplete. The owner explicitly pays the zakat of his profit share like that of the capital, the profit belonging to him by appearance and following his wealth, unlike the mudarib; he owes no zakat on the mudarib's share, which he does not own.
Example: a free Muslim man entrusts a thousand in mudaraba with the profit shared in halves; the year passes and the capital produces two thousand: the owner owes the zakat of two thousand, capital and profit share. If he pays it from elsewhere, the capital remains intact; if he pays it from the capital, it is charged to its origin and to the portion of his share in the profit: the quarter-tithe (rub' al-ushr) of the capital and that of the owner's profit share are deducted, that is twenty-five, the capital becoming nine hundred and seventy-five; without charging the whole to the capital alone or to the profit alone. The agent is never permitted to pay a zakat owed by the owner without his explicit authorization, otherwise he guarantees it: he is neither guardian nor agent in that (Kashshaf al-Qina', 2/197-198; Sharh Muntaha al-Iradat, 2/178; Matalib Awli al-Nuha, 2/19-20).
It is valid for either of the two, the owner or the agent, to stipulate that the other pay the zakat of his profit share, just as he stipulates for himself half of the profit and an eighth of the tithe, for instance. It is not valid to stipulate the zakat of the capital or that of part of the capital from the profit, for the agent might absorb the profit, as when stipulating known dirhams.
The fourth issue: zakat on deposited property (wadi'a). The jurists of the four schools agree that zakat is due on the deposit; they differ: does he pay every year, or only after receipt for the past years? The majority holds annual payment.
The Hanafis: zakat is due on the deposit. If a deposit is handed over and the depositor forgets, and the recipient is an acquaintance, the zakat of the past is due from him when he remembers: forgetting a kindness is rare, the way of access remaining, and he is not charged for the forgetting outside its place. If the recipient is a stranger, no zakat of the past, access being impossible (Bada'i' al-Sana'i', 2/9-10; al-Durr al-Mukhtar, 2/266; Durrar al-Hukkam, 2/309).
The Malikis: deposited wealth remaining for years with the depositary pays the zakat of the past years after receipt. The cause appears in the difference between usurped property, lost property and deposited property: the usurped and the lost left their owner's hand by force, rendering him incapable of growth: a single zakat. The deposited, however, was placed in the depositary's hand of his own free choice: the owner remains capable of making it grow, hence the zakat every year. Ibn Ashur demonstrated the annual payment at the time of obligation. According to another opinion, a single year upon receipt, for lack of growth; it is also reported that he opens a new year after receipt (Sharh Mukhtasar Khalil, 2/179; al-Taj wa-l-Iklil, 1/541; al-Sharh al-Kabir ma'a Hashiyat al-Dasuqi, 2/45; Hashiyat al-Sawi, 3/138-139; al-Muntaqa, 2/113).
The Shafi'is: zakat is due on the deposit at the completion of every year, if it is a nisab or if he adds it to wealth of the same kind that he holds. Imam al-Shafi'i, may Allah have mercy on him: a debt held by an absent person counts as absent trade and the deposit, zakat in each. The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, having legislated zakat on the year, all wealth is either zakatable according to the legislation, or without zakat, like derived wealth. If a man has a debt and the year passes, the creditor being able to take it, the debtor present, solvent, not denying and not forcing him to litigation, he takes it or pays its zakat, as with the deposit. Otherwise, upon receipt, the zakat of the past years, nothing else being permitted: likewise absent livestock, the deposit and forgotten buried property, without dispute. If the absent property is in trade, the agent has it valued and the zakat is paid; likewise buried property and the debt. Whenever the property perishes after the year while the person was able, its zakat is a debt; whenever he pays only upon receipt and the property perishes before, no zakat of the past, the property having perished before he could pay (al-Umm, 2/51).
Al-Amrani, may Allah have mercy on him: a due debt from a solvent person who pays willingly requires the payment of zakat at the completion of every year, if it is a nisab: it is like deposited property (al-Bayan, 3/291). The Hanbalis: zakat is due on deposited property according to its conditions, like other wealth, for it counts as what is in his hand: the depositary is his delegate in safekeeping, the depositary's hand counting as his. The depositary is not permitted to pay the zakat from it without the owner's permission: that would be seizing it (al-Mughni, 4/24; Kashshaf al-Qina', 2/201-202).
The fifth issue: the zakat of a woman's mahr. Disagreement: must she pay every year, or is only the zakat of the past years due upon receipt, followed by a year elapsed in her hand? Abu Yusuf and Muhammad among the Hanafis, the Shafi'is and the Hanbalis in the madhhab hold the zakat of the mahr due. According to the Shafi'is, she must pay it every year even if she has not received it; according to Abu Yusuf and Muhammad and the Hanbalis, she pays the past years upon receipt.
Imam al-Nawawi, may Allah have mercy on him: the texts of al-Shafi'i, may Allah be pleased with him, and of his companions, may Allah have mercy on them, agree that the zakat of the mahr obliges the woman when the year passes, and that paying the whole at the end of the year is required without dispute, even before the marriage's consummation; exposure to annulment through rescission, khul' or other, or to reduction by half through divorce, is without effect (al-Majmu', 6/18). Abu Yusuf and Muhammad: zakat is due on the mahr, the woman's absolute ownership, body and hand, enabling her to receive through the substitute thing; but she is not summoned immediately, the property not being truly in her hand. Upon receipt, she pays the zakat of what she received, small or large, like the thing exceeding the nisab (Tuhfat al-Fuqaha', 1/294; Bada'i' al-Sana'i', 2/9-10; Majma' al-Anhar, 1/289).
Ibn Qudama, may Allah have mercy on him: the woman who receives her mahr pays for the past. The mahr, within the liability, is the woman's debt, under the ruling of debts: if the husband is solvent, zakat is due upon receipt for the past; if he is insolvent or a denier, two narrations, al-Khiraqi holding the obligation. No difference between before and after consummation: it is a debt in the liability, like the price of what she sells. If half falls through divorce before consummation and she receives the half: zakat on what is received only, the other half being an uncompensated and unreceived debt, like what escapes receipt through insolence or denial. Likewise if the whole mahr falls before receipt through annulment of the contract at her initiative: no zakat; such is the ruling of every debt falling before receipt without her waiver, or of which she despairs, and of lost property given up on: no zakat, zakat being an ease imposed only on what has been obtained.
If the mahr is a nisab, the year passes, then half falls and she receives the half: zakat on the received half, zakat having been due and then half falling for a specific cause. If the year passes before receipt and she then receives the whole, she pays for that year; if years pass before receipt and then collection, she pays for the whole past, unless the nisab is no longer reached. Abu Hanifa: zakat is not due from her before receipt, the mahr being compensation for what is not wealth, like the debt of manumission. The answer: it is a debt she can claim and whose payment is compelled: zakat is due. It differs from the debt of manumission, which cannot be claimed, the mukatab being able to refuse payment: their analogy is invalid, the mahr being compensation for wealth.
Chapter: if she received her mahr before consummation, the year passes, she pays its zakat, then the husband divorces her before consummation: he takes back half of it, and the zakat remains upon the half that remains hers. Al-Shafi'i, according to one of his opinions: the husband takes back half of what exists and half of the value of the paid zakat, for if all of it perished he would take back half of its value, and likewise if part perished. To this is answered the word of Allah: he can take back in kind, hence no return in value, as if nothing had perished; it follows that if all has perished, he cannot take back in kind.
"then half of what you appointed as dower"
Surah Al-Baqarah, 237
If he divorces her after the year and before the zakat is paid, he cannot take the zakat from the nisab: the husband's right having attached to it in co-ownership, not the zakat; the zakat is paid from elsewhere, or they divide it and it is paid from her share. If he divorces her before the year, he owns the undivided half, under the ruling of selling the undivided half before the year, already explained. Chapter: if the mahr is a debt and the woman releases the husband after the year has passed, two narrations: the zakat is upon her, having disposed of the debt as if she had received it; or upon the husband, having owned what he was released from, his ownership never having left. The first is sounder. If the husband becomes owner immediately, this does not entail the zakat of the past.
It is possible that no zakat falls on either of them: the debt not received by the woman is not imposed on her, as if it had fallen without her waiver; this if the debt is of the kind zakatable upon receipt; otherwise, no zakat in any way. Every debt released by its creditor after the year has passed follows the ruling of the mahr. Ahmad: if the woman gifts her mahr to her husband after ten years have elapsed, the zakat is upon the woman, the wealth having been hers; if a man gifts wealth to another, the year passes and the donor takes it back, he may not take it back; if he does, the zakat is upon the one who held it. And regarding a man whose partner sold his share of the house without giving him anything, then, a year later, excused himself for lack of dirhams and was excused: he must pay zakat, having owned it for a year (al-Mughni, 4/27-28; Sharh al-Zarkashi, 1/399-400; Sharh Muntaha al-Iradat, 2/176; Kashshaf al-Qina', 2/200).
The Malikis, Abu Hanifa and Ahmad according to one narration: the zakat of the mahr is not due from the woman before receipt and a lapsed year. The Malikis: no zakat before collection and a year elapsed since, immediate or deferred mahr, even if she delays collection to flee zakat (al-Taj wa-l-Iklil, 1/558-559; al-Sharh al-Kabir ma'a Hashiyat al-Dasuqi, 2/60; Sharh Mukhtasar Khalil, 2/191). Abu Hanifa, may Allah have mercy on him: the debt arising as compensation for what is not wealth, such as the mahr owed by the husband to the wife, the khul' compensation owed by the wife, and a settlement for intentional homicide, bears no zakat; no zakat before full receipt and a year elapsed after receipt (Tuhfat al-Fuqaha', 1/294; Bada'i' al-Sana'i', 2/9-10; Majma' al-Anhar, 1/289).
Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyya, may Allah have mercy on him, was asked about a woman's mahr owed by her husband: years pass without her being able to claim it, to avoid separation between them, then she is compensated with real estate, or he pays it to her after years: is the zakat of the past years due, or does the year open from the time of receipt? He answered: several opinions. The zakat of the past years, the husband solvent or insolvent, like one of the two opinions in the schools of al-Shafi'i and Ahmad, upheld by a part of their companions; or with his ease and her ability to receive it, not in the contrary case, like their other opinion; or for a single year, like Malik's view and one view in Ahmad's school; or none at all, like Abu Hanifa's view and one view in Ahmad's school.
The weakest of the opinions is the one obliging the past years even when receipt is impossible: it is invalid, for obliging them beyond what they receive, without anything having been obtained, is impossible in the Law; the length of time making the zakat exceed the wealth, and the nisab diminishing. It has also been said that zakat is due on the body of the nisab, the obligation being known only through an endless calculation that the Law cannot require. The closest view to the sound is the one obliging nothing before the year has passed, or a single zakat upon receipt: two tenable opinions, that of Abu Hanifa and that of Malik, both reported in Ahmad's school; and Allah knows best (Majmu' al-Fatawa, 25/47-48).