Zakat and Sawm: Their Conditions and Rulings

Ibn Qudamah's treatment of zakah in Al-Kafi demonstrates his characteristic approach of combining precision in ruling-statement with clarity in evidential grounding. zakah is obligatory upon every free Muslim who owns wealth reaching the nisab (threshold) and who has held that wealth for a full lunar year (hawl), with the exception of agricultural produce and minerals, for which the hawl is not a condition.

The categories of zakatable wealth in Al-Kafi follow the standard Hanbali taxonomy: gold and silver (and by extension, cash and monetary instruments), trade goods valued against the silver nisab, grains and fruits subject to zakah (wheat, barley, dates, raisins, and by scholarly extension, any major staple crop), livestock of three types (camels, cattle, and small ruminants), and buried treasure or mineral wealth (rikaz and ma'dan).

Ibn Qudamah examines the nisab for each category with reference to prophetic reports. For gold: 20 mithqal (roughly 85 grams). For silver: 200 dirhams (roughly 595 grams). The rate is one-quarter of a tenth (2.5%). For agricultural produce: the nisab is 5 awsuq (approximately 653 kilograms of the staple product), and the rate is 10% if rain-fed and 5% if irrigated — based on the authentic hadith: 'On that which is watered by the sky and springs, a tenth; and on that watered by irrigation, a twentieth' (al-Bukhari).

For livestock, Ibn Qudamah presents the detailed tables transmitted from the Prophet's practice. For camels: no zakah below five; one sheep is due for every five up to twenty-five; then the scale shifts to young camels. For cattle: one yearling male (tabi') for every thirty head, and a two-year-old female (musinnah) for every forty. For sheep and goats: one sheep per forty head up to one hundred twenty, then the scale increases.

The eight categories of zakah recipients (asnaf) are enumerated with their definitions. Ibn Qudamah emphasizes that the fuqara' (the poor) and masakin (the destitute) are the primary recipients, and that paying zakah to relatives who are not in one's financial dependency is especially meritorious because it combines the reward of zakah with the reward of maintaining family ties (silat ar-rahim).

The chapter on sawm (fasting) covers the Ramadan fast in detail. The fast begins upon verified sighting of the new crescent moon or completion of thirty days of Sha'ban. Ibn Qudamah discusses the scholarly question of whether local moon-sighting or a global sighting applies, presenting the Hanbali view that one region's sighting is sufficient to establish the fast for the entire Muslim community if it is reliably reported.

The fast's nullifiers are listed: intentional eating and drinking, sexual intercourse (which additionally requires kaffarah), intentional vomiting, cupping (hijamah — the Hanbali position based on the hadith of Shaddad ibn Aws), and the onset of menstruation or postnatal bleeding. Ibn Qudamah notes the evidential debates around some of these, particularly the cupping ruling, giving the student a sense of how Hanbali positions relate to the underlying hadith evidence.