What is the ruling on the zakah of land if its owner has a debt?

The questioner : So that they do not blame me. A man has land set aside for trade. He is in debt for approximately the value of the land. Does the land have zakah? I ask for a detailed answer.

The Shaykh : We first ask the person who has land: What do you want with this land? Do you want to keep it to build a residence for yourself? Or to build a residence for rent? Or do you want to preserve it and say, "If I need it, I will sell it; otherwise, I will keep it"? Or do you say, "I bought the land to preserve my money, because I am a clumsy man; if the money stayed in my hand, it would fly away, but I preserve my money with this land, and I do not intend to escape from zakah"? If he wants these things, there is no zakah on the land. But if he says, "I bought this land to engage in trade and commerce," then this land has zakah.
And if he has a debt that corresponds to the value of the land, this debt does not cancel the zakah of the land. The stronger position is that a debt does not negate the obligation of zakah in zakatable wealth. The evidence for this is two things. The first is the generality of the evidence obligating zakah without detail. As for the claim that Allah or His Messenger mentioned that these zakatable wealths only require zakah for one who has no debt: let whoever has a text that stipulates this condition bring it to us to share this knowledge. And let whoever finds a text act according to it and set aside our statement regarding the land.
Second, zakah is obligatory in wealth, and you must answer: zakah is obligatory in wealth, by the saying of Allah the Exalted: , and the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said to Mu'adh ibn Jabal when he sent him to Yemen: So zakah is in the wealth. Where is the debt? The debt is on the person in his liability (dhamah); it is not in the wealth, my brother. It is in the liability. Because if the debt were in the wealth, then if the wealth were left behind, the debt would be dropped. The debt is in the liability. Now, is the aspect in which zakah is obligatory and the aspect in which the debt is obligatory separate or united? Is the aspect one or not one? It is not one, my brother. How can it be one? The debt is in the liability and zakah is in the wealth. And if the aspect is separate, it is not possible for one to lift one of the two things by the other. Because lifting one thing by the other only happens if the aspect is united. As for the meaning of separation, each one proceeds in its own aspect. And based on this, we say that the debt does not prevent the obligation of zakah. The scholars differ on this issue with three main positions. One position says that the debt cancels the zakah, and that one who has a debt has no zakah on what corresponds to that debt. Another position says that the debt does not prevent the obligation of zakah, and that one who has a debt must not take it into account and must pay the zakah on the wealth he has in hand. These two positions are opposite. And there is a third, middle position that says the debt is a barrier to the obligation of zakah in hidden wealth, but not in apparent wealth. What is hidden wealth and what is apparent wealth? Hidden wealth is what is kept in the air (i.e., not visible), and apparent wealth is what is visible to people: gold, silver, and the value of trade goods. Is that hidden or not? As for fruits, grains, and livestock, they are apparent wealth. Regarding apparent wealth, it is said that if a person has a nisab of livestock and has a debt that consumes this nisab, then zakah is obligatory on him for this livestock. So a man has forty sheep and has a debt of four hundred thousand; is zakah obligatory on him or not? It is obligatory, because the wealth is apparent and the desires of the poor are attached to it. And the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) used to send collectors to take the wealth and they did not ask the owner of the wealth if he had a debt or not.
But the stronger position is the one I mentioned first: that the debt does not prevent the obligation of zakah, and that the owner of the land, and the questioner who has this land, must pay its zakah if it is for trade goods or if it is trade goods, even if he has a debt greater than its value. All right.