Zakat and Fasting in the Shafi'i School

Al-Iqna's treatment of zakah follows Abu Shuja's organized presentation of the Shafi'i school's detailed and systematic approach to this central financial obligation. Ash-Shirbini's commentary fills in the legal reasoning, the evidentiary basis, and the practical applications that Abu Shuja's concise matn leaves implicit.

In the Shafi'i school, zakah is obligatory on five categories of property: gold and silver (and monetary equivalents), merchandise held for trade, livestock (camels, cattle, sheep and goats), and agricultural produce. The nisab for gold is twenty mithqals (approximately 85 grams modern weight) and for silver is two hundred dirhams (approximately 595 grams). The annual rate on both is one fortieth (two and a half percent). These thresholds derive from the hadiths of the Prophet reported by Abu Dawud and others, and the scholars of all four schools agree on them.

A distinctive Shafi'i ruling concerns zakah on agricultural produce. The Shafi'i school restricts obligatory zakah on crops to those that can be dried and stored long-term, specifically grains and dried fruits (wheat, barley, dates, raisins being the primary examples). Vegetables, fresh fruits, and most perishable produce are not subject to zakah in the Shafi'i school. This contrasts with the broader Maliki and Hanafi positions that extend zakah to more categories of agricultural produce. The Shafi'i restriction is based on the hadith of Abu Sa'id al-Khudri that the Prophet did not take zakah on less than five awsuq (a volume measure), and the reasoning that the measurement by volume implies storability.

On the distribution of zakah, the Shafi'i school holds a distinctive position: ideally, the zakah must be distributed among all eight categories of recipients mentioned in Surah at-Tawbah (9:60) — or at least three individuals from each category present in the region. If some categories are absent, the zakah is distributed among those present. The Shafi'i school also requires that zakah be paid in the same region where the property is located, unless there is no eligible recipient there or a greater need exists elsewhere.

On the fast of Ramadan, Abu Shuja's text is succinct and ash-Shirbini's commentary covers the essential Shafi'i positions carefully. The intention (niyyah) for the Ramadan fast must be made before Fajr for each individual day — a point of consensus between the Shafi'i and Hanafi schools against the Maliki position that a single intention at the beginning of the month suffices. The Shafi'i school also requires that the intention include specifying it as the fast of Ramadan — a specific obligatory fast — not merely a general intention to fast.

The acts that break the fast in the Shafi'i school include: food, drink, and sexual intercourse with intention and awareness; deliberate vomiting; letting anything reach the body cavity through any open channel (including drops in the ears or nose); and the onset of menstruation or postnatal bleeding. The Shafi'i school's detailed analysis of what constitutes 'reaching the body cavity' (wusul ila al-jawf) is one of the more technically complex areas of fasting law, and ash-Shirbini works through the cases methodically.

The kaffarah for deliberately breaking the Ramadan fast through sexual intercourse is the same across all schools: freeing a slave, then fasting sixty consecutive days, then feeding sixty poor people. The Shafi'i school holds that this kaffarah is only triggered by sexual intercourse, not by other deliberate violations. Intentionally eating or drinking without a valid excuse requires only qada (making up the day) without kaffarah in the predominant Shafi'i position — a significant difference from the Hanafi school.