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Zakah
Zakah is the obligatory share of wealth that a Muslim gives each year to those Allah has named as its recipients, such as the poor and the needy. The word carries the sense of purification and growth: giving it purifies the giver and blesses what remains.
It is due from a Muslim whose zakatable wealth reaches a minimum threshold (the nisab), classically twenty mithqals of gold or two hundred dirhams of silver, and stays at or above it for a full lunar year. On gold, silver, money and trade goods the rate is one fortieth (2.5%); livestock and crops have their own detailed amounts.
Zakah is not a favour to the poor but their right. When the Prophet ﷺ sent Mu'adh to Yemen, he told him to teach the people that Allah has made zakah obligatory on them, taken from their rich and returned to their poor. The Qur'an lists eight categories of recipients, and the Prophet ﷺ warned that wealth on which zakah was withheld will become a punishment for its owner on the Day of Resurrection.
The four schools differ on some details. Show them
Each school's ruling, with the schools that share it named together.
Is zakah due on a woman's permissible gold and silver jewellery that she wears?
3 of 4 schools agree. Differing: Hanafi.
Show each school
- Zakah dueHanafi
- No zakahMaliki · Shafi'i · Hanbali
- Hanafi
- Gold and silver are zakatable in themselves whatever their form, supported by hadiths such as that of the woman whose daughter wore two gold bangles (Sunan Abi Dawud).
- Maliki
- Jewellery kept for permissible wear is like clothing and household goods, not wealth held for growth; this is reported from several Companions, including 'A'ishah and Ibn 'Umar.
- Shafi'i
- The relied-upon position is the same as the Malikis', though jewellery kept as savings or for trade is zakatable in every school.
- Hanbali
- The relied-upon position agrees with the Malikis and Shafi'is, on the same reasoning that it is an item of personal use.
- Qur'an 9:60
- Qur'an 9:103
- Qur'an 9:34-35
- Sahih al-Bukhari 1395 Sahih · in the two Sahihs
- Sahih al-Bukhari 1403 Sahih · in the two Sahihs
- Sahih Muslim 987Sahih · in the two Sahihs
What the hadith grades mean
- Sahih (authentic): an unbroken chain of trustworthy, precise narrators, free of hidden flaws or contradiction. It is acted upon.
- Hasan (good): like sahih, but a narrator's precision is slightly lighter. It is also accepted and acted upon. "Hasan sahih" means it reaches sahih by its routes.
- Da'if (weak): a break in the chain or a narrator who is not reliable enough. It is not used to establish beliefs or rulings.
- Very weak (munkar, matruk): a seriously flawed chain or a narrator accused of lying. It is not relied on at all.
- Mawdu' (fabricated): falsely attributed to the Prophet ﷺ. It may not be narrated as his words except to warn against it.
- The two Sahihs: every hadith with a full chain in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim is accepted as sahih by the scholars of hadith.
- Historical report: biographies and histories (Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabari) record events with chains that are often incomplete. They are used for the story, not for rulings.
- Hadith scholars grade a narration; the four madhhabs do not. Where a hadith carries a ruling, the page shows which schools act on it.
The positions of the four schools are summarised from their standard references and are pending review by a qualified scholar. Follow the school you were taught, and for your own situation, ask a scholar.
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