Kinds of charity dues

THE Revelation determines five kinds of charity dues:

No dues of charity apply to kinds of property other than these five - like the property of houses; private clothing; house furniture; animals used for riding; vehicles limited to individual usage; arms, rarities, articles of make­up, jewellery precious diamonds; or machinery employed in industry, agriculture, or in producing books. If any of these, however, is used as an item of trade, the duty of charity then applies to it.

Dues of Charity in Gold and Money

The dues of charity apply to gold and money, whether as coins, nuggets, ingots or paper money - after the passage of a lunar year on their possession.

The amount of charity due here is 2.5%, to be collected from those who possess the minimum amount of gold: 20 miskals or 77.6 grams of gold, or whatever is equal to this amount in money not cast in gold, or paper money, or shares of business firms.

This principle applies as long as the amount of gold or money is in the possession of its owner - whether kept at a bank on deposit, or used as a commercial stock, or deposited as a savings account, or set as bonds or securities of insurance.

Dues of Charity on Merchandise

The obligation of charity dues here does not apply to the articles of a business transaction, but to the value of the transaction itself, and thus its minimum value to which the dues of charity apply is exactly the minimum value that applies to gold.

The condition is that a year should pass on the possession of the value of the deal, not of the goods it combines - though the said value might cover thousands of articles. The accepted standard is that the goods should mount to the minimum value at the beginning and end of the year, no matter if their value decreases or increases during the year.

The dues of charity are taken from the capital together with the profits, and commercial deals are evaluated according to the current price.

Dues of Charity on Agricultural Products

The value of charity dues here is 10% if the crops are watered without the use of machinery, that is, by way of rain, a river or a spring. It is 5% if machinery is used to this effect. If the supply of water is provided both ways the percentage of the major supply (whether artificial or natural) applies; if equal, the amount of charity is 1.4%.

The dues of charity on crops apply to all that the earth produces with no difference between a crop and another, or between grafted and non­grafted crops. Here no minimum value is specified: charity dues apply to all the agricultural produce of the earth, and these dues are collected every time the earth yields its produce: "Render the dues that are proper on the day that the harvest is gathered" (Al-Qur'an 6: 141).

To be continued Insha' Allah