Exploring Zakatable Wealth from Classical and Contemporary Scholars Perspectives

Abstract

Nowadays, there are many collective ijtihad by various internationally recognized Islamic organizations as well as individual fatwas of leading contemporary Muslim jurists have been undertaking the process of identifying modern wealth that are compulsory to be zakatable. This is because nowadays, there are many economic activities that are capable of generating higher profit returns and many of them are seen probably higher than those of the traditional zakatable sources. This paper attempts to study the conditions and foundations of zakatability of wealth classically and contemporarily which are made subject to zakat based on the Islamic legal theories and scholars’ perspectives. Then, it explores both classical and contemporary zakatable wealth. To fulfill the objectives, this study will use a qualitative approach with data collection methods documentation. It involves library research to get information from various sources like books, journals, papers work and others and then analyzing them by using inductive and deductive (istiqrai’i) approach. The study found that there are several conditions made by the classical and contemporary jurists on wealth before it is made to be subject to zakat. They have also come out with various approaches like analogy (qiyas), growth (nama’), richness (ghina’) and historical success factor in identifying the basis (dawabit) of zakatable wealth. The findings of this research show that based on ijtihad and fiqhi resolutions of the jurists, zakat accommodates contemporary changes in the concept of wealth and gives opportunity in exploring the expansion of the other zakatable wealth resources in the form of modern assets. As such due to changes of time, these foundations of zakatability will continue to be implemented due to its suitability and significance with the demands of the needs of the Ummah