Is there zakah on a woman's jewelry?

Question : The questioner says: It has been said that there is zakah on gold intended for use. What is your answer, Honorable Shaykh (may Allah preserve him), to the one who says that this opinion implies that gold is like a rental item? If a woman were told, "Take this gold, and every year you owe such-and-such amount of money," she would refuse, because it is considered a long-term installment with no end date. So what do you say about that?

Answer : We say in this matter, first, that we must know that any opinion or theory that contradicts the explicit text is rejected, and its proponent is struck in the face by it. It is not possible to oppose the texts with false opinions, because any opinion that contradicts the text is invalid. If we have texts from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) regarding the obligation of zakah on jewelry, these texts cannot be opposed by mere opinion. We say to this woman, meaning, if we were to accept this man's opinion and say that she is like one who rents out her jewelry, we would say: we do not obligate her to rent it out. We say: sell your jewelry and do not use it, do not use it. And if she sells it, then at that point there is no zakah on it for her, because it is out of her ownership. Just as if jewelry were offered to her for rent and she refused, there would be no zakah on it for her. Zakah is not a burden that a person should try to evade; zakah is a gain. The reward of zakah is stored with Allah (Mighty and Majestic), and it is not . For this reason, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) entered his family's home one day and asked about a sheep they had slaughtered: what did they do with it? They said: O Messenger of Allah, we gave it in charity. No, on the contrary, the hadith says they said: some of it remained. Yes, we gave it in charity and its shoulder remained. She said: all of it remained except its shoulder. Why did he say all of it remained? Because they gave it in charity, and what they gave in charity is what remains for them. The shoulder they kept to eat does not remain, because the most that can happen with it is that a person eats it and then it goes to the worst of places, to the place of relief. So the result is that we must not believe zakah is a burden; we must believe it is an act of worship by which a person worships Allah (Mighty and Majestic), and we must believe it is a gain by which a person earns reward. If he spends one dirham, what is his reward with Allah? Ten dirhams up to seven hundred dirhams.
The result is that the evidence indicates the obligation of zakah on gold or silver jewelry if it reaches the nisab (minimum threshold for zakah). All opinions and theories that contradict this cannot be used to oppose the text. Comparing it to clothing is an analogy with a difference, because zakah is not obligatory on the substance of clothing, whereas zakah is obligatory on the substance of gold and silver. If a person claims that converting this gold or silver into jewelry causes the zakah to drop, we say, "Bring the evidence for this." Otherwise, the default is that zakah is obligatory on gold and silver in all cases. As for clothing, if a person has a thousand garments and he does not count them for trade, there is no zakah on them. There is a difference between what is originally subject to obligatory zakah and what is not; if there is a difference between them, it is not valid to analogize one to the other. Moreover, we say that any analogy that contradicts the text is an analogy that is refuted against its proponent. What is it called by the scholars of usul al-fiqh (principles of jurisprudence)? It is called fasid al-iti'bar (defective consideration). Yes, and we have a small treatise in which we listed these objections raised by those who do not see the obligation of zakah on gold or silver jewelry, and we answered these objections. So let whoever wishes refer to it.