"Islam
is based on five: testifying that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad
is the Messenger of Allah, establishing the prayer, paying the Zakat, the Hajj
and the fast of Ramadan."
Zakat
cannot be paid with a promise of payment
Zakat
can only be paid with tangible merchandise, called in Arabic 'ain. It cannot
be paid with a promise to pay or a debt, called in Arabic dayn.
From
the beginning the zakat was paid with dinars and dirhams. Most significant is
that the payment of zakat was never allowed in paper money during all the ottoman
period right until the fall of the Khalifate.
Shaykh
Muhammad Alish (1802-1881), the great Maliki Qadi, said that if
you were to pay zakat with paper-money only its value as merchandise
('ayn), that is, its value as paper can be accepted. Therefore, its
nominal value is irrelevant as payment of zakat.
"If
the Zakat was obligatory by considering its substance as a merchandise, then the
nisab would not be stipulated according to its value but according to its
substance and its quantity, as is the case with silver, gold, grain or fruits.
Since its substance [paper] is irrelevant [in value] in respect
to the Zakat, then it should be treated as the copper, iron or other similar substances."
Fatwa
of Shaykh Alish
Payment
of Zakat is perfectly explained and regulated in the Islamic jurisprudence. For
centuries when Islamic Law was enforced by a Caliph or an Amir, the Zakat was
collected in gold and silver. When paper-money was being first introduced, during
the last century by the colonial powers the traditional ulema rejected it as being
opposed to Islamic Law. According to them paper money was to be treated as fulus
or lower category of currency with limited used, basically just as small change.
It is, for example, not allowed to make a qirad with fulus. Among
those ulema, stands out the famous scholar of magrebi ascendance, Shaykh Muhammad
Alish (1802-1881) who was the Shaykh of the Shaykhs of Maliki fiqh in the University
of Al-Azhar in Egypt. He wrote in his Fatwa.
"What
is your judgement in respect to the paper with the stamp of the Sultan that circulates
like the dinars and the dirhams? Is it obligatory to pay Zakat as if it was a
coin of gold or silver, or merchandise, or not?"
I
responded exactly in the following way:
"Praise
belongs to Allah and blessing and peace upon our Master Muhammad, the Messenger
of Allah."
"Zakat
is not to be paid for it, because Zakat is restricted to the flocks, certain type
of grains and fruits, gold and silver, the value of rotational merchandise and
the price of the goods withheld. What is referred previously does not belong to
any of these categories."
You
will find an explanation by comparison with the copper coin or fulus with
the stamp of the Sultan which is in circulation and for which no Zakat is paid
since it does not belong to any of the categories mentioned. It says in the "Mudawwana":
"Those who posses fulus for over a year for a value of 200 dirhams
does not need to pay Zakat unless is used as a rotational merchandise. Then, it
should be treated as if it was a merchandise."
In
the "At-Tiraz", after mentioning that Abu Hanifa and Ash-Shafi'i obliged
to pay Zakat for the fulus, [is stated that] since both affirm that the
payment of Zakat is from value, and considering that Shafi'i has two contradictory
opinions about the subject, the opinion of the school is that there is no obligation
to pay Zakat for the fulus since there is no discrepancies about the fact that
what counts with respect to the fulus is not its weight or its quantity
but only its given value. If the Zakat was obligatory by considering its substance
as a merchandise, then the nisab would not be stipulated according to its
value but according to its substance and its quantity, as is the case with silver,
gold, grain or fruits. Since its substance [paper] is irrelevant [in value] in
respect to the Zakat, then it should be treated as the copper, iron or other similar
substances.
And
Allah, ta'ala, is the Wisest. And may Allah bless and give peace to our Master
Muhammad and his family.
(Translated
from the "Al-Fath Al-'Ali Al-Maliki" pp. 164-165).
This
Fatwa considers paper-money to be fulus, because it only represents
money and does not have value as merchandise. It follows that since
Zakat cannot be paid in fulus, which has no value as merchandise,
it cannot be paid in paper-money, which value as weight of paper is
null. On this basis, it becomes clear the urgent need to restore the
use of the Dinar and the Dirham as payment of Zakat. If the millions
of Muslims who now make their payment of Zakat in paper money would
do it in newly minted Dinars and Dirhams, they will put in circulation
millions of gold and silver coins into the mainstream of daily commercial
activities of our communities. That single act will became the most
important political act of the century, opening the path towards the
establishment our own halal free currency breaking away from the usurious
financial system.
The
return to the payment of zakat in gold and silver is an essential part of the
reestablishment of Islam.
