When does the lunar year for zakah begin?

Question:
May Allah reward you with good. At the end of the biography, this questioner says: Honorable Shaykh, I have a sum of money that has reached the nisab (minimum threshold for zakah). I received it about a week before Ramadan. Do I have to pay the zakah a week before Ramadan, or is it permissible for me to delay the zakah until the beginning of the month of Ramadan?

Answer:
Zakah begins from the time the wealth is owned, not from the time it is received, but from the time it is owned and becomes due. So, if a lunar year (hawl) has passed since you owned this wealth, zakah becomes obligatory on it, even if you have not calculated it. The criterion is its entry into your ownership, whether by purchase, gift, inheritance, or any other type of ownership. The hawl of wealth on which zakah is obligatory begins from the time it is owned. As for the profit of trade and the offspring of grazing livestock, their hawl is the hawl of their original capital if it was a nisab, or from the time it reaches the nisab. Yes.