(see Can Zakat Be Used to Pay Debt?)
Are there different ZDDs for profit on principal during the Zakat year?
No. Whatever profits or gain comes from one’s principal wealth during that Zakat year gets added to that principal for the purposes of calculating Zakat payment. The principal’s same original due date remains in place. One does not start another lunar year on these additional assets, be it profits or birth from livestock, even if it comes the day before the due date.
Can different kinds wealth have different ZDD?
Yes. If one receives a different kind of Zakatable wealth (say gold as personal wealth, as differentiated from one’s trade goods or business properties), most scholars say that one starts a new calculation of a year for the newly acquired, different wealth type’s ZDD (Gold is the different wealth-type in our hypothetical). Some scholars hold that one should pay Zakat on it upon receipt, or add it to one’s Zakat payment if one has an established Zakat accounting year.
But do not become confused. One would still add newly acquired gold, for example, to one’s other existing personal wealth for the purposes of Zakat calculation and ZDD payment. It is only when one gains a totally new wealth-type (say, one buys 50 sheep, or 30 cows, not owning any of them at the time) that one begins a new ZDD for that different wealth-type.
Can the same kinds of wealth be added together for the same ZDD for Ease?
Yes. If one takes possession of a new asset that is the same as an existing kind of wealth one has — adding gold to your gold, or sheep to your sheep — the Hanafis and Malikis hold that one adds it to the existing wealth and pays Zakat on it at that existing wealth’s ZDD because it is less liable to create confusion. It is easier and the Shari’ah goes with ease. Shafi‘is and Hanbalis say one can start a new Zakat-year (hawl) calculation on newly acquired wealth.
Can Zakat on harvest and minerals be paid at the same ZDD as other wealth?
No. For gains from the earth, one pays Zakat upon receipt, at time of harvest or extraction, as stated previously. One’s increase is immediate. So must one’s Zakat be. Obviously, some wealth yields are also perishable. (see Is Zakat Due on All Wealth? for more on this.)
Are there incentives for paying Zakat on time?
Yes. Here are three.
AVOIDING SIN, HELPING OTHERS
Zakat is both an obligation of divine worship (in the legal category of ‘ibadat), as the Third of the Five Pillars upholding Islam, and a transactional financial duty owed to the poor and deserving (in the legal category of mu‘amalat).
While Zakat’s dual nature causes most of the scholarly differences about its rulings, it also serves to strengthen the prohibition against delaying Zakat’s payment beyond its due date.
As a duty of worship, its obligation is time-delimited like all Islami’s rites of worship – fasting Ramadan, the salat-prayers, and Hajj-pilgrimage (three other of Islam’s Five Pillars). When their due time approaches, these rites become imminent obligations. To miss them is to sin and fall into divine debt that requires fulfillment.
As a financial duty, Zakat postponed usurps the wealth of its divinely appointed real owners, the poor, needful, and deserving.
THE RIGHTOUS DEED IS IMMEIDATE
Allah exhorts us: Race one another to good works (Surat Al-Baqarah, 2:148), and race one another to the forgiveness of your Lord – and to a Garden whose breadth is as the breadth of all heaven and earth (Surat Al-Hadid, 57:21).
None, but Allah knows future bars on one’s capacity, including time of death. Allah and the Prophet, on him be peace, repatedly tell the believer, do while you can; give while you have.
This applies most urgently to Zakat (and to sadaqah, voluntary charity) since it aims to relieve the poor, afflicted, and deserving.
UNPAID ZAKAT TAINTS WEALTH
The Prophet, on him be peace, said: “A person’s obligatory alms does not remain mixed with his other wealth without obliterating it” (Bukhari, Tarikh Al-Kabir, The Large History of Hadith Narrators).
Is Ramadan the best time to pay Zakat?
Yes, but it is not required. (see Is Ramadan the Best Time to Pay Zakat?)
Zakat Al-Fitr, the “Zakat of Fast-Breaking,” is universally obliged on all Muslims in Ramadan. (see Zakat Al-Fitr)
All deeds multiply in Ramadan, including Zakat and sadaqah. Just $1 given in Ramadan, on Laylat Al-Qadr, equals at least $30,000, if we use its thousand-month multiplier: The Night of Empowering Decree is better than a thousand months! (Sûrat Al-Qadr, 97:3).
For this reason, the third Caliph ‘Uthman ibn ‘Affan, God be pleased with him, encouraged this. He said of Ramadan: “Here is the month for you to pay your Zakat. If you have debts, then pay them [now] so that you can sort out your wealth and take Zakat from it” (Malik’s Muwatta).
Yet urgent need – starvation, epidemics, displacement and injury from war and disaster – or imbalances in seasonal charitable giving – can make one’s Zakat payment at other times better than in Ramadan.