Islamic products rest on a small number of contracts drawn from Islamic contract law. This section explains, contract by contract, what is sold, leased or entrusted, who bears the risk and when ownership changes hands.
Understanding the contract helps you recognise a genuinely compliant offer and spot an interest-bearing loan under a new name. Each guide also shows how the contract is used today by banks and in the markets.
Guides in the Contracts section
- Bai Muajjal: The Sharia-Compliant Deferred Payment Sale
- Bai Salam: Pay in Advance, Take Delivery Later
- Dayn: Debt in Islamic Law and Finance
- Deposits and Purchase Options: What Bai al-Urbun Really Allows
- Handing a portfolio to an appointed manager: Wakala bil-istithmar explained
- Hawala: Debt Transfer Contract and Remittance Network
- Hibah, when a bank or relative gives without asking anything back
- Istisna: Financing an Asset to Be Built
- Ju'alah: a Reward Promised for a Result
- Kafalah: Sharia-Compliant Guarantee Explained
- Mudaraba: capital on one side, work on the other
- Murabaha on physical raw materials
- Murabaha: cost-plus sale explained, with calculator
- Musawama: negotiated sale without cost disclosure
- Musharaka: the Islamic partnership contract
- Protecting Against Currency and Rate Moves Without Speculation
- Qabd: taking possession before a resale
- Qard Hassan: the benevolent interest-free loan
- Rahn: collateral and pledges in Islamic finance
- Sadaqa: voluntary charity and Islamic social finance
- Selling or Transferring a Receivable Without Riba
- Setting limits for the manager: Mudaraba muqayyada and its contractual boundaries
- Tawarruq: raising cash through buy and resale
- Wa'd: the unilateral promise in Islamic finance
- Wakala: the agency contract in Islamic law
- Waqf: the perpetual endowment in Islam
- Why Islamic banks run their accounts on a Mudaraba mutlaqa basis
- Zakat: calculation, recipients and social role