Chapter: (Tricks) in Zakat

That Abu Bakr wrote for him, Zakat regulations which Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) had made compulsory, and wrote that one should neither collect various portions (of the property) nor divide the property into various portions in order to avoid paying Zakat.

A bedouin with unkempt hair came to Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) and said, "O Allah's Messenger (ﷺ)! Tell me what Allah has enjoined on me as regards prayers." The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "You have to offer perfectly the five (compulsory) prayers in a day and a night (24 hrs.), except if you want to perform some extra optional prayers." The bedouin said, "Tell me what Allah has enjoined on me as regards fasting." The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "You have to observe fast during the month of Ramadan except if you fast some extra optional fast." The bedouin said, "Tell me what Allah has enjoined on me as regard Zakat." The Prophet (ﷺ) then told him the Islamic laws and regulations whereupon the bedouin said, "By Him Who has honored you, I will not perform any optional deeds of worship and I will not leave anything of what Allah has enjoined on me." Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "He will be successful if he has told the truth (or he will enter Paradise if he said the truth)." And some people said, "The Zakat for one-hundred and twenty camels is two Hiqqas, and if the Zakat payer slaughters the camels intentionally or gives them as a present or plays some other trick in order to avoid the Zakat, then there is no harm (in it) for him.

Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "On the Day of Resurrection the Kanz (Treasure or wealth of which, Zakat has not been paid) of anyone of you will appear in the shape of a huge bald headed poisonous male snake and its owner will run away from it, but it will follow him and say, 'I am your Kanz.'" The Prophet (ﷺ) added, "By Allah, that snake will keep on following him until he stretches out his hand and let the snake swallow it." Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) added, "If the owner of camels does not pay their Zakat, then, on the Day of Resurrection those camels will come to him and will strike his face with their hooves." Some people said: Concerning a man who has camels, and is afraid that Zakat will be due so he sells those camels for similar camels or for sheep or cows or money one day before Zakat becomes due in order to avoid payment of their Zakat cunningly! "He has not to pay anything." The same scholar said, "If one pays Zakat of his camels one day or one year prior to the end of the year (by the end of which Zakat becomes due), his Zakat will be valid."

Sa'd bin 'Ubada Al-Ansari sought the verdict of Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) regarding a vow made by his mother who had died before fulfilling it. Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "Fulfill it on her behalf." Some people said, "If the number of camels reaches twenty, then their owner has to pay four sheep as Zakat; and if their owner gives them as a gift or sells them in order to escape the payment of Zakat cunningly before the completion of a year, then he is not to pay anything, and if he slaughters them and then dies, then no Zakat is to be taken from his property."