Zakat and Fasting in Tabyin al-Haqaiq

Az-Zayla'i's treatment of zakah and fasting in Tabyin al-Haqaiq examines the Hanafi school's positions on these pillars with the hadith-grounded analysis that characterizes his entire work. His evaluation of the hadith evidence for each Hanafi ruling — including his willingness to note when a hadith cited by Hanafi scholars is weak or disputed — makes the work particularly valuable for scholars engaged in comparative legal studies.

The zakah chapter opens with the foundational Quranic commands and the Prophet's letters on zakah preserved in the hadith collections. Az-Zayla'i explains the Hanafi positions on each category of zakatable property: gold and silver (and monetary wealth generally), trade goods, livestock, and agricultural produce. The Hanafi school's broad definition of zakatable agricultural produce — extending to all intentionally cultivated crops — is contrasted with the Shafi'i restriction to stored grains and dates.

On the question of whether the wealth of minors is subject to zakah, az-Zayla'i presents the Hanafi position (zakah is not obligatory on minors) and examines the hadith evidence cited by both sides. The Hanafi argument is that zakah is defined in the hadith of Mu'adh as being 'taken from the rich among them and given to the poor among them' — and a minor cannot be 'rich' in the legal sense because they lack full legal capacity. Az-Zayla'i evaluates this reasoning alongside the hadith cited by the other schools for obligating zakah on minors' wealth, and defends the Hanafi position while acknowledging the genuine weight of the opposing view.

The Hanafi approach to zakah distribution is explained in detail: the Hanafi school permits giving all zakah to one person or one category of recipients, unlike the Shafi'i school's requirement to distribute among all eight categories. Az-Zayla'i explains this by noting that the Quranic verse (at-Tawbah 9:60) lists the eight categories as recipients to whom zakah 'is for' — indicating eligibility, not a requirement to distribute among all of them. The principle of giving where the need is greatest can thus be applied within a single category or even to a single individual.

For fasting, az-Zayla'i's commentary on Kanz ad-Daqa'iq covers the Hanafi positions with their evidential basis. The Hanafi school requires a nighttime intention for each day of Ramadan separately (consistent with the Shafi'i and Hanbali schools) and specifies that the intention must be made before midday of the fast day at the latest — a more lenient position than requiring it before Fajr. This late deadline for intention is based on the Hanafi view that the intention's purpose is to distinguish the fasting from eating by choice, and since a person who has not eaten anything from Fajr to midday has not yet done anything incompatible with fasting, making the intention before midday is sufficient.

On what breaks the fast, the Hanafi school is analyzed by az-Zayla'i with his characteristic attention to the hadith evidence. The three primary fast-breaking acts (eating, drinking, sexual intercourse) are established by Quranic text and hadith. Additional Hanafi fast-breakers include: deliberate vomiting in sufficient quantity; cupping when the person's strength is weakened by it (the Hanafi position on cupping is more nuanced than the Hanbali blanket prohibition — cupping breaks the fast only when it weakens the person, following a hadith that the Hanafi school interprets in this limited sense).

The kaffarah for deliberately breaking the Ramadan fast is explained with its hadith basis: the famous hadith in Bukhari and Muslim establishing the three-stage kaffarah (freeing a slave, sixty-day consecutive fast, feeding sixty poor people). Az-Zayla'i notes the Hanafi distinctive position that the kaffarah is triggered by any deliberate fast-breaking act — not only sexual intercourse as the Shafi'i school holds — based on the general principle that the Quran establishes the fast as an absolute obligation whose deliberate violation without cause warrants the most serious expiation.