Zakat, Fasting, and Hajj: Hanbali Mu'tamad Rulings

Al-Mardawi's coverage of zakah in Al-Insaf reflects the Hanbali school's strong reliance on explicit hadith evidence in determining zakatable categories and amounts. The five categories on which zakah is obligatory — gold and silver, trade goods, livestock, agricultural produce, and extracted minerals and buried treasure (rikaz) — are accepted across all four schools, though details differ. The Hanbali school's distinctive inclusion of rikaz (buried pre-Islamic treasure) as a category subject to the khums (one-fifth tax) rather than the regular zakah rate is noted and confirmed by al-Mardawi as the mu'tamad.

On the nisab for livestock, al-Mardawi presents the graduated scales from the prophetic hadith: for camels, beginning at five camels with one sheep due; for cattle, beginning at thirty head with a one-year-old calf due; for sheep and goats, beginning at forty with one sheep due. He addresses the Hanbali position on mixed herds of sheep and goats — that they are combined for nisab purposes as a single category — and the question of the shar'i rules for animals that are jointly owned.

The chapter on fasting covers both obligatory and voluntary fasting. The Hanbali mu'tamad on the beginning of Ramadan holds that the fast begins with the confirmed sighting of the crescent moon by at least two witnesses, or by the completion of thirty days of Sha'ban. Al-Mardawi discusses the question of relying on astronomical calculation (hisab) to determine the start of Ramadan — a question that was already debated in the medieval period — and confirms that the mu'tamad rejects reliance on calculation alone in favor of actual moon sighting.

For expiation (kaffarah) of a deliberately broken Ramadan fast, the Hanbali school's mu'tamad — confirmed by al-Mardawi — holds that the kaffarah applies specifically to cases of deliberate intercourse during the fast, not to all deliberate nullifiers. Deliberate eating or drinking without a valid excuse requires qada' but not kaffarah in the Hanbali school, in contrast to the Maliki position that extends kaffarah to all deliberate nullifications.

On hajj, al-Mardawi confirms the Hanbali positions on the miqat boundaries, the conditions of ihram, and the rites themselves. The Hanbali school's preferred form of hajj is tamattu' — performing 'umrah in the months of hajj and then entering ihram again for hajj — based on the prophetic hadith encouraging this form. This is the opposite of the Shafi'i preference for ifrad. Al-Mardawi explains the evidential basis for the Hanbali preference and acknowledges that all three forms (ifrad, qiran, tamattu') are valid in the school.