1- WHO MUST PAY ZAKAT
WHO MUST PAY ZAKAT
(Muhammad Shirbini Khatib:) Lexically, zakat means growth, blessings, an increase in good, purification, or praise. In Sacred Law it is the name for a particular amount of property that must be payed to certain kinds of recipients under the conditions mentioned below. It is called zakat because one’s wealth grows through the blessings of giving it and the prayers of those who receive it, and because it purifies its giver of sin and extolls him by testifying to the genuineness of his faith (al-Iqna’ fi hall alfaz Abi Shuja’ (y7), 1.183).)
Zakat is obligatory:
a) for every free Muslim (male, female, adult, or child);
b) who has possessed a zakat-payable amount (Ar. nisab, the minimum that necessitates zakat, for livestock h2.4-5; for grain and dried foodstuffs h3.4; for gold, silver, and other money h4.2; and for trade goods h5.I);
c) for one lunar year.
Non-Muslims are not obliged to pay zakat, nor apostates from Islam (murtad) unless they return to Islam, in which case they must pay for the time they spent out of Islam, though if they die as non-Muslims their property is not subject to zakat (because their property is considered to belong to the Muslim common fund (bayt ai-mal) from the moment such people leave Islam).
The guardian of a child or insane person is obliged to pay zakat from their property (if they owe any). It is a sin for the guardian not to pay the zakat due on their property, and when the child or insane person becomes legally responsible (upon reaching puberty or becoming sane), he is obliged to pay the amount that his guardian neglected to pay (of zakat in the past).
Zakat is due from the owner of property that has been:
1. wrongfully seized from him;
2. stolen;
3. lost;
4. fallen into the sea;
5. or loaned to someone who is tardy in repayment;
-only if the owner regains possession of it, whereupon he must pay zakat on it for the whole time it was out of his hands (for the year or years that no zakat was paid on the absent property, since his having regained it establishes that it belonged to him the whole time, and his ownership of it is not vitiated by the mere fact of its not having been in his possession during these years, provided that it has remained a zakat-payable amount (nisab) during them. If it has diminished through expenditure to less than the zakat payable amount, then no zakat need be paid on it), If the owner cannot regain the property, there is no zakat on it.
If a landlord rents someone a house for two years for 40 dinars, which he accepts in advance and retains possession of until the end of the two years, then at the end of the first of the two years he only pays zakat on 20 dinars, but at the end of the second year he pays one year’s zakat on the 20 which he paid zakat on at the end of the first year (as the 20 has now been in his possession a second year) and pays two years’ zakat on the 20 for which he did not previously pay zakat (as it has remained in his possession for two full years).
Someone with only the zakat-payable amount (of gold or silver) must pay zakat on this amount even when he is in debt for an amount equal to it, for debts do not remove the obligation of zakat.
Zakat is not due on anything besides:
1. livestock;
2. (some) food crops;
3. gold and silver (or their monetary equivalents);
4. trade goods;
5. mined wealth (meaning gold or silver exclusively;
6. and wealth from treasure troves (buried in pre-Islamic times).
Zakat is paid from the property itself, though it is permissible to take it from another lot of property (on condition that the amount paid is from the Same type of property (of the five types mentioned above) that the zakat is due on, such that one may not, for example, pay money for zakat due on wheat (n: but must pay wheat. An exception to this is trade goods, which are appraised, and zakat may be paid on them with money).
THE ZAKAT YEAR
By the mere fact that a full lunar year transpires (i.e. begins and ends while zakat payable property is in the owner’s possession), the poor now own the portion of it that the owner is obliged to pay as zakat. Thus, if someone has had 200 dirhams (the minimal zakat-payable amount of silver) in his possession for years without paying zakat, he is only obliged to pay zakat on it for the first year (because after that year, the amount owned by the poor (5 dirhams) has diminished the money he possesses to less than the zakat-payable amount).
If all one’s property were destroyed after having been in one’s possession a full year but before it was possible to pay zakat (to deserving recipients), then there is no obligation to pay zakat on it (because it was destroyed through no fault of the owner); but if only part of the property has been destroyed, such that this diminishes the rest to less than the zakat-payable amount, then one must take the percentage due on the original amount (2.5 percent, for example) from the remaining property, and no zakat is paid on the amount destroyed.
If all or part of one’s property is destroyed after having been in one’s possession a full year and after it was possible to have paid zakat on it (by there being both property and recipients), then one must pay the zakat due on both the remainder and the property destroyed.
Zakat is not obligatory if a person’s ownership of the property ceases during the year, even if only for a moment, and it then returns to his possession; or if it does not return; or if the person dies during the year.
The zakat year begins on property purchased or inherited when the buyer or inheritor takes possession of it, though if a person relinquishes his ownership of property during the zakat year merely to avoid paying zakat on it, this is offensive (as the learned differ about its unlawfulness). The more reliable opinion is that it is unlawful, though the transaction would be legally valid. But if such a person sells the property after possessing it a full year and before paying zakat on it (as when he sells it all, or sells part and the rest is not enough to require zakat), then the sale of the proportion of the property that was owed as zakat is invalid (because it belonged to someone else (i.e. the recipients), and it is not valid to sell another’s property without his consent), although the sale of the proportion of the property that was not owed as zakat is valid.
(Source: The reliance of the traveller, revised edition, Edited and Translated by Nuh Ha Mim Keller)
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