Zakah of Children’s Wealth

Q: I have small children under the age of puberty that have bank accounts over the nisab, do they need to pay zakah on their wealth?

Summary: Zakah is an act of worship in the Hanafi School therefore, the wealth of children is not subject to Zakah. In the other schools, Zakah is a right of the poor over the Zakah-eligible wealth, therefore the wealth of children is included.[1][2][3]

“It is not obligatory except upon the free sane mature Muslim. Because a slave does not have any property, the non-believer is not addressed with the outward rulings from what is known in principles of fiqh, and the child and insane person are not addressed with acts of worship yet this is from the greatest acts of worship.”[4]

Answered by Shaykh Bilal Brown

[1] “Zakah is obligatory with five conditions. Intellect and puberty were not counted from them because ‘the school’ is the obligation of zakah of a child and insane person upon their guardian because possession of the threshold (nisab) and the passing of a year is a cause.” (Hashiyah Saniyyah wa Tahqiqat Bahiyyah, Chapter of Zakah).

[2] Imam al-Nawawi says:

“The condition for the obligation of zakah of wealth is Islam and freedom. It is binding upon the apostate if we cause his property to remain, not the contract-slave. It is obligatory in the wealth of a child and an insane person. (Minhaj al-Talibin, Chapter on who Zakah is Binding and What it is Obligatory of it in Relation to Them).

[3]Imam Mansur al-Buhuti mentioned after numbering the conditions for zakah being obligatory: “The third (condition) is the possession of the threshold (nisab) even if it is a child or insane person because of the generality of the narrations and statements of the companions (may Allah be pleased with them).” (Rawd al-Murbi’, Chapter of Zakah).

[4] (Al-Ikhtiyar li Ta’lil al-Mukhtar, Chapter of Zakah).