UMAIYAD PRACTICE AS THE STARTING-POINT

that the zakāt becomes due only after one year's uninterrupted ownership; this reason is given explicitly on behalf of the Iraqians, and on behalf of the Medinese implicitly in a statement of the general rule with the isnād Mālik—Nāfiʿ—Ibn ʿUmar. The Medinese explained away the authorities that might be adduced in favour of the practice¹, by a tradition to the effect that ʿUthmān deducted from the pension only the amount of zakāt due for other property, on the basis of the declaration of the recipient.² The same procedure was projected back to Abū Bakr in the following tradition:

Mālik—Muḥammad b. ʿUqba consulted Qāsim b. Muḥammad on the deduction of zakāt from pensions—Qāsim referred to Abū Bakr for the general rule regarding zakāt, and stated that Abū Bakr followed the procedure as mentioned. This can be dated to the generation preceding Mālik, when the proper decision was still in doubt.

The Umaiyad administration seems to have levied zakāt tax on the property of minors.³

When payments were made in kind, the Umaiyad administration issued assignments on its stores, and the speculative trade in these assignments, leading as it did to usury (ribā), provoked a reaction on the part of the Iraqians and the Medinese. The Medinese prohibited re-selling food before one had taken possession of it, the Iraqians extended this prohibition to all objects.⁴ Both the administrative practice and the objection raised against it are explicitly stated in a story which involves Marwān b. Ḥakam, and the objection against re-selling food before one has taken possession of it is ascribed to Ibn Musaiyib,⁵ and expressed in traditions related by Nāfiʿ and ʿAbdallāh b. Dīnār, from Ibn ʿUmar, from the Prophet. Traditions in favour of the extension of the prohibition to all objects were known also in Medina; they start with a version according to which ʿUmar ordered Ḥakīm b. Ḥizām not to re-sell before he had taken possession,⁶ and this version develops into traditions from the