Do I owe zakat on silver jewellery or jewellery with gemstones?

Silver jewellery is treated much like gold jewellery in this discussion, and scholars are divided along similar lines. The Hanafi school holds that zakat is due on gold and silver jewellery regardless of whether it is worn regularly or kept for personal adornment, since gold and silver remain inherently zakatable metals in their view no matter the form. The majority — the Shafi'i, Maliki, and Hanbali schools — hold that jewellery genuinely used or intended for personal wear within customary, reasonable amounts is exempt from zakat, since its purpose has shifted from wealth-storage to personal use; if it is hoarded as savings or clearly exceeds what is customary for adornment, it becomes zakatable even in this majority view. Gemstones and precious stones that are not gold or silver — diamonds, pearls, rubies, emeralds — are, in the well-established majority opinion, not zakatable at all when kept for personal wear, since only gold and silver were established as base zakatable metals; other materials were historically treated as ordinary property. The exception is if such jewellery, of any material, is bought and held for resale as merchandise, in which case it becomes zakatable trade goods like any other stock.

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