The Glossary

'In the name of God' — the invocation Muslims begin actions with.

The full form Bismillah ar-Raḥmān ar-Raḥīm ('In the name of God, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful') opens 113 of the 114 Qurʾānic surahs and is recommended at the start of any significant action.

Necessity — the classical principle that prohibition is lifted when survival is at stake.

The maxim: 'necessity makes the prohibited permitted.' Strict conditions: the necessity must be real (not preference), present (not anticipated), and only the minimum required by the necessity is permitted. The ECFR's 1999 Resolution 2/4 invokes ḍarūra to permit conventional housing finance under specific conditions — debated whether those conditions are met in modern Western contexts.

Islamic jurisprudence — the human discipline of deriving rulings from the sources.

Fiqh is the human effort; sharīʿah is the divine source. The distinction matters: fiqh is fallible and varies between schools, sharīʿah is the underlying revelation. Mistakes in fiqh do not equal mistakes in sharīʿah.

Need — a lower threshold than ḍarūra; a strong need that creates hardship if unmet.

Where ḍarūra is about survival, ḥājah is about meaningful hardship. The Ḥanafī school in particular has more generous allowances for ḥājah than the other madhabs. Used in some scholarly justifications for engaging contested Islamic finance products as preferable to conventional alternatives.

Permitted under Islamic law.

The opposite of ḥarām. Used colloquially across many domains (food, finance, business, marriage). In Islamic finance specifically: free of riba, gharar (excessive uncertainty), maysir (gambling), and ḥarām industries.

Forbidden under Islamic law.

The opposite of ḥalāl. In finance: anything involving riba, gharar, maysir, alcohol, gambling, pork, weapons targeting civilians, conventional banking/insurance equity above the AAOIFI thresholds.

Migration — the Prophet's 622 CE journey to Medina; also a contemporary religious migration.

The Prophet ﷺ migrated from Mecca to Medina in 622 CE, marking the start of the Islamic calendar. The classical concept: migration from a place where the dīn cannot be practised. Contemporary application: voluntary relocation of Western Muslims to Muslim-majority countries — discussed honestly at /hijrah.

Legal tricks — engineering compliance with the letter of the law while violating its spirit.

Plural of ḥīla. Used pejoratively by contemporary scholars critiquing modern 'Islamic' finance products that meet the technical form of a permissible contract while replicating the economic substance of a forbidden one. Mufti Taqī ʿUsmānī, AAOIFI, and AMJA have all explicitly named ḥiyal as a structural problem in modern Islamic banking.

Leasing. The bank owns the asset and leases it to you; ownership transfers at the end of the lease.

Classical Ijārah is a genuine lease: the lessor owns the asset, the lessee uses it for rent, ownership remains with the lessor. The Islamic-finance 'Ijārah Muntahia Bil-Tamleek' (lease ending in ownership) adds a transfer clause. Critical question: who really bears the risk of the asset during the lease period?

Scholarly consensus — one of the four sources of Islamic law after Qurʾān, Sunnah.

When the qualified scholars of an era agree on a ruling, that ruling acquires the strongest possible authority. The prohibition of riba is among the strongest cases of ijmāʿ — every major school across every century affirms it.

The Friday sermon — delivered by the imam before the Friday congregational prayer.

Mandatory for adult male Muslims (with classical exemptions). Often the primary vehicle for educating Muslim communities on contemporary issues. /khutbah on this site provides a downloadable pack for imams who want to address riba from the minbar.

School of Islamic jurisprudence. Four major Sunnī schools: Ḥanafī, Mālikī, Shāfiʿī, Ḥanbalī.

Plural: madhāhib. Each school has its own methodology, leading authorities, and accumulated rulings. Most contemporary Muslims follow one school in primary practice while drawing on others when needed. Riba is unanimously prohibited across all four; specific applications (e.g. CPI indexation, certain Islamic-finance structures) sometimes differ.

The dowry — the husband's obligatory gift to the wife at marriage. Hers to keep.

Q. 4:4 is explicit: 'Give the women their mahr as a free gift.' The verse uses the feminine plural, meaning the mahr is paid directly to the wife — not the bride's family. Split into muqaddam (paid at nikāḥ) and muʾakhkhar (deferred). The Sunnah is ease: the most blessed marriage is the one whose mahr is the easiest.

The higher objectives of Islamic law — preservation of religion, life, intellect, lineage, wealth.

The classical 5 maqāṣid framework (developed most fully by al-Shāṭibī). Modern Islamic-finance scholarship uses the maqāṣid frame to argue that some technically-compliant products fail the maqāṣid (e.g. preserve form, harm substance) — a sharper critique than simple violation of rules.

Islamic inheritance law — the Qurʾānic fixed shares and residue rules.

From Q. 4:11–12 + 4:176. Heirs receive predetermined fractional shares (e.g. spouse 1/4 or 1/8, mother 1/6 or 1/3, sons 2× daughters' share). Complex cases involve ʿawl (proportional reduction), radd (proportional return), and the named edge cases (Akdariyya, Mushtaraka, etc.). A faradi is a specialist in this fiqh.

Profit-sharing partnership where one party provides capital, the other provides effort.

The capital provider (rabb al-māl) provides funds; the entrepreneur (muḍārib) provides labour and operational responsibility. Profits are shared per agreed ratio; losses fall on the capital provider (since the muḍārib has already lost their time and effort). Classical model for private equity into halal businesses.

Cost-plus-markup sale. The bank buys the asset, then sells it to you at a markup paid in instalments.

Classical Murābaḥah is a real cost-plus sale: the seller discloses the cost + the markup, the buyer pays the agreed price (often in instalments). Modern banking 'Murābaḥah' frequently engineers the underlying ownership away — many scholars classify such versions as ḥiyal (legal tricks) and structurally equivalent to a conventional loan.

Partnership. Two or more parties share capital, profits, and losses.

The Prophetic model of risk-sharing partnership. Diminishing Mushārakah is used in Islamic home finance: the bank and customer co-own the property, the customer gradually buys out the bank's share. Critical question: do losses really fall on both partners proportionally? If the customer is contractually guaranteed against loss, the structure collapses into a disguised loan.

Minimum wealth threshold before zakāt becomes obligatory.

Two classical thresholds: 87.48g of gold, or 612.36g of silver. Most contemporary scholars (including Mufti Taqī and al-Qaraḍāwī) recommend the silver basis — it widens the obligation in favour of the recipients.

Interest. Any predetermined increase on a loan, or unequal exchange of the same commodity.

The root meaning is 'increase' or 'growth'. Classical fiqh distinguishes two main categories: riba al-nasīʾa (riba of delay — predetermined interest on a debt) and riba al-faḍl (riba of excess — unequal exchange of the same commodity). The Qurʾān (al-Baqarah 2:275–279) declares it among the gravest sins, framing it as a war against God and His Messenger.

Riba of excess — exchanging the same commodity in unequal amounts on the spot.

Trading 1g of pure gold for 1.1g of pure gold on the spot is riba al-faḍl. The Prophetic prohibition specifies six commodities (gold, silver, wheat, barley, dates, salt). Modern scholarship debates analogical extension to other commodities.

Riba of delay — what's normally called 'interest' on a loan.

The increase paid (or charged) on a loan in exchange for the time the loan is outstanding. This is the category that covers conventional mortgages, credit cards, personal loans, and almost all forms of consumer-finance interest.

Islamic divine law — the source the scholars derive fiqh from.

From the root meaning 'the path to water'. Encompasses the Qurʾān, the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ, the consensus of the scholars (ijmāʿ), and analogical reasoning (qiyās). Fiqh is the human effort to understand and apply sharīʿah.

Islamic bonds — certificates of ownership in real assets.

Plural of ṣakk. Investor receives a share of returns from a real underlying asset (or pool), not a fixed interest payment. Mufti Taqī ʿUsmānī has publicly criticized that many modern sukūk issuances are functionally conventional bonds with a sukūk wrapper.

The example of the Prophet ﷺ — his sayings, actions, and tacit approvals.

The second source of Islamic law after the Qurʾān. Preserved primarily through the hadith literature (Bukhārī, Muslim, the four Sunan, etc.) with rigorous chain-authentication. The standard against which to test any modern practice claiming Islamic legitimacy.

Islamic mutual insurance — a cooperative risk-pooling model.

Participants contribute to a pooled fund used to compensate any member who suffers a covered loss. Avoids the gharar + riba problems of conventional insurance. The operator typically takes a fee, not a share of underwriting profit.

Sincere repentance + return to God.

Linguistically: 'to return'. Three classical conditions when the sin is against God: (1) stop the sin immediately, (2) regret it sincerely, (3) resolve never to return. When the sin involves the rights of others (riba does — to the lender + to the family), the fourth condition is to make restitution where possible.

The global Muslim community — one body, regardless of nation or race.

Q. al-Ḥujurāt 49:10: 'The believers are nothing but brothers.' Hadith: 'The believers in their mutual love, mercy, and compassion are like a single body — if one limb aches, the whole body shares the fever and sleeplessness.' (Bukhārī 6011). The unifying frame for the global riba-free movement.

A bequest. Limited to 1/3 of the estate, and cannot be to an heir who already has a Qurʾānic share.

The Prophet ﷺ said: 'It is not right for a Muslim with anything to bequeath to spend even two nights without his will being written.' Bequests > 1/3 require unanimous heir consent. Bequests to existing heirs are not valid in classical Sunni positions (they have their fixed shares already).

The obligatory annual charity on wealth above the nisāb threshold — 2.5% on most asset classes.

One of the five pillars of Islam. Owed on cash, gold, silver, business inventory, halal equities, super, receivables — above the nisāb threshold and after a full lunar year of possession. Distributed to one or more of the eight Qurʾānic categories (Q. 9:60).