Nisab (wealth threshold)

The nisab in fiqh is the fixed minimum of wealth on which zakat falls due; below it no zakat, at or above it the prescribed rates apply per category. The fiqh sets a nisab for each zakatable kind: gold about 85 grams (twenty mithqal), silver about 595 grams (two hundred dirhams), livestock by their known counts — five camels, thirty cattle, forty sheep — crops and fruit by five wasqs (about 653 kg on the reckoning), and trade goods valued by either monetary nisab. Other conditions bind the nisab: the passing of a lunar year for money and goods, full ownership, surplus over essential needs, and debt; and the scholars differ on requiring the nisab at the year's beginning, end or throughout, and on pooling wealth of one kind. It is the root of the social gradation of zakat: the tax is on the rich, and the nisab is the line of wealth.