A Theoretical Analysis of Zakah and the Possibility of Extending its Base

Although all of the Islamic jurisprudential schools are in consensus about this fact that Zakah is an Islamic obligatory payment, there is a wide disagreement about the Zakah base. Some of the schools confine Zakah in the nine exactly stated assets in the Hadiths and others develop its base in a way that includes any valuable asset.As a result, the choice of the Fighi view will have great influence on the increase or decrease of the Zakah payments and hence on solving the problem of poverty in the Islamic society. Emerging the extended view of Zakah base by the scholars near the Imams era, imposition of Zakah on horse cattle in Imam Ali government, and the existence of some Hadiths clarifying the imposition of Zakah on unemployed tradable assets during the year, may be some evidence for the extended theory of Zakah base.