Nisab
Gold or silver nisab?
85 grams of gold, or 595 grams of silver: two classical thresholds, for the same due. Today, they no longer tell the same story at all.
Last updated: 11 September 2026
Today's nisab
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Where these two weights come from
Both references are old and never change: 20 mithqal of gold and 200 dirhams of silver — a count fixed by prophetic tradition. What varies is never that count — it's the modern gram equivalent of a mithqal.
Two schools, two gram conversions
The classical count (20 mithqal of gold, 200 dirhams of silver) isn't in question — the modern gram value of a mithqal is, and it splits along the schools of jurisprudence. The majority view — held by the OIC's Fiqh Council and most contemporary institutions, including al-feqh.com — puts a mithqal at about 4.25 g, giving a nisab of 85 g of gold (595 g of silver). The Hanafi school instead uses about 4.375 g per mithqal, giving 87.48 g of gold (612.36 g of silver) — the figure Islamic Relief and the National Zakat Foundation follow. This site uses the majority figure, 85 g / 595 g. If another site quotes you a slightly different nisab for the same metal, that isn't necessarily an error on either side — it likely follows the other school.
Why the gap between gold and silver is so wide today
Originally, the two thresholds represented a fairly similar value. The price ratio between gold and silver has since shifted a great deal on modern markets, and the gap between the two nisabs has widened accordingly — reaching roughly a factor of 9 today. In practice: someone whose wealth sits between the two thresholds is liable under one, not under the other.
Who follows which
The silver nisab is more often adopted for zakat on money and savings, on the grounds that a lower threshold benefits recipients more — in keeping with zakat's redistributive purpose. The gold nisab is still followed by others, notably for gold holdings themselves. Neither is universally "the right one": the choice comes down to the opinion followed, not a calculation.
Both thresholds today
The values below are recalculated every day from metal prices, exactly as in the calculator.
The nisab is never fixed
Unlike the 2.5% rate, which never changes, the nisab tracks the price of gold and silver — so it can differ from one month to the next, even for the same person from one year to another.
Sources
The figures and rules cited in this article, for verification.
The exact figure takes a year of tracking
Zakat is owed on a snapshot of everything you hold the day your hawl completes — and that hawl breaks entirely, not just pauses, the moment your wealth dips below the nisab along the way. Wazn tracks that automatically from your own statements and tells you exactly what's due, on the date it's due.