Q. I heard on television a mufti saying that women’s jewelry is liable to zakah under certain conditions. When I got married, my wife brought to my house a quantity of gold jewelry according to custom in our part of the world. Over the last few years I gave her more jewelry. Is all of that jewelry liable to zakah, and under what conditions?
F. Aqilani
A. I have repeatedly said that a woman’s jewelry that she keeps for her own use, as is the case with the overwhelming majority of women, is exempt from zakah, provided that it is within what is reasonable for women in her social status. This applies to the jewelry she owns, either through purchase or given to her as a gift by relatives or friends, or acquired through any other lawful means. It is exempt from zakah whether the woman is rich or poor. It is treated as an article for her own use.
The reader raises here another question, which is the result of a social custom that runs contrary to Islamic teachings. In Islam, when a man marries, he has to give his wife a dowry which then belongs to her as her own property. In his part of the world, this is reversed. What the man gives to his wife is called meher, which is the Arabic term for dowry. In his country, the meher is often a nominal sum, which the woman is instructed by her parents to forgo. It is hardly ever paid. Instead the woman gives her husband a dowry in the form of gold or jewelry. This is a Hindu custom, which has been retained among Muslims in the countries of the Indian subcontinent.
Our reader says that his wife brought him jewelry according to this custom. He asks whether this is liable to zakah. The answer depends on how this jewelry is viewed: who owns it now? I presume that it was a gift from the wife to the husband. In this case, it is liable to zakah along with the rest of the man’s property. What is exempt from zakah is what the woman owns for her personal use. This is now the property of the husband, and a man does not need such jewelry. It is certainly liable to zakah.
On the other hand, the jewelry the reader gave to his wife over the last five years as gifts is not liable to zakah because it is her property. There is an important difference here. The man may allow his wife to wear the jewelry she brought him, but both he and his wife consider that jewelry to belong to him. Therefore, it is zakahable.
Having said that, I want to add a word of advice to this reader and to every reader in the same position, i.e. everyone whose wife gave him jewelry at the time of marriage in accordance with this Hindu custom should return the gold to his wife and to tell her that it belongs to her. She can do with it what she likes, even return it to her parents. Instead, he should pay her the dowry, or meher, agreed at the time of their marriage. In this way, he brings his marriage in line with Islamic marriage.
