Agricultural Nisab Measurement for Zakat Assessment

Zakat, the third pillar of Islam is intended to manage the social wealth, obligatory for the rich and distributed to the needy. Among the wealth is the agricultural produce that are due for zakat in each cropping season, either 5% or 10% of the crops. Yet, the crops must reach a certain amount to be zakatable, known as nisab which is obliged at 5 awsuq or 300 gantang Madinah. In January 1981, the Fatwa Committee Conference of the National
Council for Islamic Religious Affairs of Malaysia (Majlis Fatwa Kebangsaan, MFK) decided the nisab as 363 gantang Malaysia; and the use of metric system for related type of zakat nisab is harus (allowed). This is following the enforcement of a new measurement system effective in January 1981; the International System of Units (SI); resulting in the traditional volume measures being prohibited for trade. A new culture emerged; agricultural produce is no longer traded by measuring (its volume) but by weighing its weight (kilogram). This led to some issues in conversion the nisab from the traditional to the SI unit. States in Malaysia decided the agricultural nisab differently without realizing that gantang and traditional measures have been obsolete. This paper recommended the appropriate SI unit and conversion for both agricultural nisab and gantang; which will help standardize the nisab in
Malaysia. To adapt the SI unit to the current practice of agricultural produce trading, the application of density cup with simplified equations are introduced in the assessment of agricultural nisab and zakat