Livestock zakat calculator

A table, not a rate

Zakat on livestock is the one form that is not a proportion of anything. It is stated as a schedule: at forty sheep, one is due; at a hundred and twenty-one, two; and so on. The payment is an animal of a specified age, not a sum of money.

One consequence surprises people: the effective rate falls as the herd grows. Forty sheep owe one head, which is 2.5%. Four hundred owe four, which is 1%. That is what the schedule says, and it is not an error in the arithmetic.

The condition that decides everything

These schedules apply to grazing animals, sa’ima, that feed on open pasture for most of the year. Animals kept on fodder that has been bought or grown are treated differently, and in several schools carry no livestock zakat at all, on the reasoning that they represent a running cost rather than wealth that multiplies on its own.

No calculator can see how your animals are kept, so this one states the condition and applies the schedule to the number you give it. If your herd is fed rather than grazed, the answer here may not apply to you at all.

Reading the animal names

The schedules are stated in age terms rather than in bare head counts, because the age of the animal is part of what is owed. For cattle, a tabi’ is a one-year-old of either sex and a musinnah a two-year-old female. For camels the ladder runs bint makhad, bint labun, hiqqah, jadha’ah: second, third, fourth and fifth year females. The tool gives both the term and a plain gloss, because the term is what a scholar or a collector will use.

Where the schools part company

Up to 120 camels the table is agreed. Above that the common statement is a bint labun for every forty and a hiqqah for every fifty, which is what this tool applies, but the detail of how the first steps past 120 are handled differs, and the tool flags that rather than presenting one answer as settled.

Mixed herds, animals owned jointly, and whether the value may be paid in cash instead of an animal all have rules of their own that are not modelled here.

Animals that are not counted here

Working animals, kept for ploughing, drawing water or transport, are generally exempt, treated as tools rather than as wealth. Animals held as trade stock are a different case again: they are valued like any other trade goods and belong in an ordinary zakat calculation, not in this schedule.