What is the nisab for financial assets: is it based on gold or silver?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : Between gold and silver, that is a myth.
The Shaykh : Yes.
The questioner : Why do we not want the zakah that was requested for his wives?
The Shaykh : It is valued according to the share of the poor in trade goods. If there is no share, we value it in silver; if there is no share, we value it in gold. However, if the intention is the zakah of a specific individual, then we must consider that specific individual. Is that clear? This is the share of the poor in trade goods only. But now, if we estimate, for example, that a person has five dinars which are worth more than the nisab in silver, there is no zakah on him until he has twenty mithqals. And the reverse is the reverse. And the common case is that gold is more expensive than silver.
The Shaykh : Yes.
The questioner : Why do we not want the zakah that was requested for his wives?
The Shaykh : It is valued according to the share of the poor in trade goods. If there is no share, we value it in silver; if there is no share, we value it in gold. However, if the intention is the zakah of a specific individual, then we must consider that specific individual. Is that clear? This is the share of the poor in trade goods only. But now, if we estimate, for example, that a person has five dinars which are worth more than the nisab in silver, there is no zakah on him until he has twenty mithqals. And the reverse is the reverse. And the common case is that gold is more expensive than silver.
Source
قناة «فضيلة الشيخ محمد بن صالح العثيمين»، 1299 - 4600 ما هو نصاب الأوراق المالية هل بالذهب أم بالفضة؟ ابن عثيمين — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.