Zakat on trade goods

Question

I started a bookshop with a capital of only fifty rupees. As sales went on, I kept buying on credit religious, textbook and tabligh books in Urdu, Hindi, Arabic, Persian and Gujarati — 100 and 100 rupees’ worth at a time. As things sell I keep ordering books: goods worth five, twenty-five — sometimes the Qur’an, sometimes books; likewise textbooks stay in stock for a year or two.

Answer

From the time your capital (cash, books, jewellery) reached the amount of the nisab (the value of fifty-two and a half tolas of silver; a tola is a unit of weight, ≈ 11.66 g), upon the completion of a full year from that time its zakat became binding (lazim) upon you — provided that at the end of the year it does not remain below the nisab.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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