If payment of Zakàt becomes obligatory on date tree and...

If payment of Zakàt becomes obligatory on date tree and grapes or the crop of wheat and barley after one becomes its owner, one should pay Zakàt on them. If a person sells the crop and trees after Zakàt on wheat, barley, palmdates and grapes becomes obligatory, the seller should pay the Zakàt on them, and if he pays, it will not be obligatory on the buyer to pay anything.

If a person purchases wheat or barley or dates or grapes, and knows that the seller has paid Zakàt on them, or doubts whether or not he has paid it, it is not obligatory on him (i.e. the buyar) to pay anything. But if he knows that he (the seller) has not paid Zakàt on them, he can pay the Zakàt himself and reclaim it later from the seller. If a person has paid Zakàt once on wheat, barley, dates or raisins, on further Zakàt is payable on it, even if they remain with him for a few years.

If wheat, barley, dates and grapes are watered with rain or river, or if they benefit from the moisture of the land, like in the case of Egyptain crops, the Zakàt payable on them is 10% and if they are watered with buckets etc., the Zakàt payable on them is 5%. A person cannot deduct the expenses incurred by him on the production of wheat, barley, dates and grapes from the income obtained from them, and then weigh the remaining.

Hence if the weight of any one of them, before calculating the expenses, was about 847 kilogrammes, he should pay Zakàt on it. A person who has used seeds for farming, whether he owned them or he bought them, cannot deduct their value from the total harvest and calculate the rem aining. Rath re, he should culculate the tacable limit taking into account the entire crop. It is not obligatory to pay Zakàt on what goverment takes away from the goods or wealth itself.

For example, if the harvest is 2000 kilogrammes, and goverment takes 50 kilogrammes from it as taxation, it is obligatory to pay Zakàt on 1950 kilogrammes only. As an obligatory precaution, a person cannot deduct from the harvest the expenses incurred by him before or after Zakàt became due, paying Zakàt on the balance only. If a date tree or vine bears fruit twise in a year, and when combined they reach the minimum taxable limit, it is obligatory as a precaution, to pay their Zakàt.

If a person dies with a debt, and has a property on which Zakàt has become due, it is necessary that, in the first instance, the entire Zakàt should be paid out from that property, and thereafter pay his debt.