Zakat on Dates
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Your Eminence! In a fatwa you issued here regarding the zakat on dates, when you were asked: Do you not pay the zakat on each type separately?You said: The well-known position in the Hanbali school is to pay the zakat on each type, even if that is difficult.And the correct view is: That if there is difficulty, one takes from the middle type if the types are equal. The discussion goes up to this point, understood?But what is meant by your saying: Otherwise, one looks at the value and takes from one of the types according to its value?The Shaykh: The value of all the palm trees,All the dates, and it is said, for example: The value of the middle type is such and such, so one takes from the value of the middle type.
The questioner: For example, let us suppose there are seventy kilograms of sugar dates, five hundred kilograms of the middle type, and one thousand kilograms, for example, of the poor type. How do we assess it now?The Shaykh: For example: if they say the sugar dates are half the value, the second is one-third of the value, and the third is one-sixth of the value, we add them together and pay out either half of one-tenth or one-tenth, according to what is obligatory, from the middle type. And if you wish to do something else, estimate the value in general, then pay out from the value half of one-tenth or one-tenth, and this is easy.
The questioner: From the entire value?The Shaykh: From the entire value.
The questioner: Do we pay it out in value or in dates?The Shaykh: If you want to pay it out in dates, look at the middle type. If you want to pay it in dirhams, which is what we see as preferable in the present time, because people prefer dirhams more than dates, then pay out from the dirhams.
The questioner: For example, let us suppose there are seventy kilograms of sugar dates, five hundred kilograms of the middle type, and one thousand kilograms, for example, of the poor type. How do we assess it now?The Shaykh: For example: if they say the sugar dates are half the value, the second is one-third of the value, and the third is one-sixth of the value, we add them together and pay out either half of one-tenth or one-tenth, according to what is obligatory, from the middle type. And if you wish to do something else, estimate the value in general, then pay out from the value half of one-tenth or one-tenth, and this is easy.
The questioner: From the entire value?The Shaykh: From the entire value.
The questioner: Do we pay it out in value or in dates?The Shaykh: If you want to pay it out in dates, look at the middle type. If you want to pay it in dirhams, which is what we see as preferable in the present time, because people prefer dirhams more than dates, then pay out from the dirhams.