Trade and finance

Family: Arts, economy and the world · 191 entries

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Person

• Khadija bint Khuwaylid

  c. 555 CEA wealthy Meccan merchant who was the Prophet Muhammad's first wife and, in tradition, the first person to believe in his message.

• Abu Sufyan ibn Harb

  c. 560 CELeader of Mecca through the years of open war against the Muslims — commander at Uhud and the Trench — who submitted at the conquest of Mecca and ended his life a Muslim; father of the first Umayyad caliph.

• Zheng He

  1371 CE · 772 AH†Zheng He.

• Sallam ibn Abi al-Huqayq (Abu Rafi')

  A wealthy Jewish merchant of Banu al-Nadir settled in Khaybar; one of the primary instigators and financiers who traveled to Mecca and Ghatafan to forge the confederate alliance (al-Ahzab) against Medina; assassinated in his fortified residence by a Muslim covert squad led by Abdullah ibn Atik.

Event

• The Prophet's trade journey to Syria with Khadija's goods

  c. 595 CEAt twenty-five the Prophet went to Syria as a trader with the goods of Khadija bint Khuwaylid, who had heard of his truthfulness, trustworthiness and noble character and offered him better terms than other merchants, sending her servant Maysara with him; she found in her goods a trustworthiness and blessing she had never seen, which led to their marriage.

• Ali's rounds in the market of Kufa

  between 656 and 661 CEAli walked the Kufan market himself, told the traders to sell without swearing oaths, forbade adulteration and the selling of floating fish, decided disputes between sellers and buyers, and urged them not to refuse small profit lest they lose the greater.

• Taj al-Din Abu Bakr's conquest of Kirman, Makran and Sind for the Khwarazmshah (c. 611 AH)

  c. 1214 CE · c. 611 AHA camel-hirer turned Khwarazmshah's most trusted amir, Taj al-Din Abu Bakr of Zuzan took Kirman 'in the quickest time', swept Makran to Sind's borders by Kabul, and received Hormuz's tribute — the great entrepôt whose protection merchants from India, China and Yemen bought with obedience — raising the Khwarazmian khutba at Qalhat and parts of Oman; Ibn al-Athir heard the story from a Mosul soldier who marched in the conquest.

Object

• Luck of Edenhall

  A 14th-century enamelled glass beaker from Syria or Egypt that travelled to Europe and became an English family legend; at the V&A.

• Suaire de Saint-Josse

  A Khurasani silk used to wrap a saint's relics in 10th-century France; a document of Islamic silk trade with Europe.

• Zaydani Library

  The library of the Moroccan sultan Mawlay Zidan, seized by pirates and kept in El Escorial; thousands of Moroccan manuscripts in Spain.

Building

• Khan el-Khalili

  Cairo's Mamluk market (1382) — coppersmiths', goldsmiths' and coffee lanes around al-Husayn; the most famous living eastern bazaar.

• Al-Madina Souq, Aleppo

  The world's longest historic covered souq (13 km) in old Aleppo; a large part burned in the 2012 fighting and has been restored.

• Bazaar of Tabriz

  Tabriz's covered bazaar — the world's largest interconnected market complex, a UNESCO-listed Silk Road site.

• Al-Hamidiyah Souq

  Damascus's covered souq running straight to the Umayyad Mosque — the main market of the oldest living city.

• Souq Waqif

  Doha's heritage souq on the old wadi bank — spices, perfumes, falcons and traditional cafés.

Work

• Cities of Salt

  Abdul Rahman Munif's five-volume epic on oil and the transformation of Arabia — among the greatest Arabic novels, banned in several countries.

Concept

• Ajr al-mithl (customary wage)

• Akhi Baba (title of the guild shaykh and tanners' head)

  Akhi Baba was the title of the shaykh of the tekke of Akhi Evran at Kirshehir, and was also given to his delegates in the Turkish guilds of Anatolia, Rumelia and Bosnia, especially those of the tanners and leather workers, and to the heads of those guilds. Its main task was to initiate apprentices by the girding ceremony; the Akhi Babas came to control most Turkish guilds until the old guilds were abolished in 1908.

• Akik (the cornelian stone, used in seal-rings)

  Akik ('akika') is the name of the cornelian, found in Arabia in various colours, the red being most prized. It was exported from Yemen and India and used for seal-rings, ornaments and mosaics. Belief credited the cornelian in a seal-ring with soothing the heart and stopping haemorrhage, and it remains a favourite neck-ornament for women.

• Consuming wealth unjustly (akl al-mal bil-batil)

  Al-Sha'rawi reads the verse 'do not consume your wealth among yourselves in falsehood' as a command to each person not to take another's wealth unjustly. He counts usury, theft, embezzlement, bribery, cheating and gambling as falsehood, and holds that trade by mutual consent is the lawful way. Eating together with relatives and friends is not falsehood. He grounds this in the view that protecting each person's wealth protects the movement of the whole society.

• Basic needs

• Legitimate saving (al-iddikhar al-mashru)

• Hoarding money (iktinaz)

• Economy and balance in the Qur'an

• Extravagance and waste (israf)

• The cooperative society (al-jamiyya al-taawuniyya)

• The economic enterprise (al-mashru al-iqtisadi)

• Popular enterprise (al-mashru al-shabi)

• Natural resources

• Public ownership (al-milkiyya al-amma)

• Natural and unnatural economic activity

• Unnatural activity: intermediation and extraction

• Economic scarcity

• Money (al-nuqud)

• Capitalism as criticised by Qa'dat

• Seeking bounty in the land (sa'y fi al-ard)

• The transaction of faith

  Sha'rawi holds that the Qur'an uses the language of trade to show that faith is a profitable exchange; that whoever sells God's signs for a small price reverses the transaction; that wealth is a servant rather than a master; and that usury corrupts society because it makes money a commodity that grows without work.

• Communism as criticised by Qa'dat

• Inflation (al-tadakhkhum)

• The material definition of economics

• Just distribution in the Qur'an

• Factors of production in the Qur'an

• Anmudhaj (a sample shown in place of an absent or heaped good, and its rules in sale)

  Anmudhaj is lexically a sample showing the quality of a thing, such as a seller who shows a buyer a measure of wheat from a heap and sells the heap as of the same kind; it is a loan-word. Barnamij is a register setting out the goods in a bale, and raqm is a mark showing a price, whence the sale by marked price. The Hanafis require that the knowledge of the goods remove uncertainty; for an absent good that is known by measure or weight, a sample is as the whole. The Shafi'is hold that a sample of uniform grains suffices, and that a seller who names only the kind without fixing the object or price has made a void sale. The Hanbalis allow a sale by sample only if the goods were seen at the contract and matched it.

• Elephant's sweat (musth perfume)

  The musk-like secretion on Indian elephants' foreheads in their season of frenzy — gathered at its appearing for the kings' costliest unguents and worn by their champions into battle, while the maddened bull ranges a month before sobering home.

• Stipend from the public treasury (ata)

• Bank money creation

• Supervision of banks

• Sale of debts and deferred pricing

• Bayt al-mal (public treasury)

• Causes of ownership

• Safi (the chosen share of the spoils taken by the Prophet before division: the majority view that it was his alone, Abu Thawr's view, and its end)

  In language safi is the pure part of anything, and istasfa means to choose. As a term it is a thing chosen from the booty before division, such as a slave-girl, a slave, a garment or a sword. The majority hold that the safi belonged to the Prophet alone; no dissenter is known except Abu Thawr, who held that the imam may take it in the manner the Prophet took it and give it the place of the Prophet's share of the fifth of the fifth. Ibn al-Mundhir says no one preceded Abu Thawr in this view. The Prophet's letter to the Banu Zuhayr ibn Uqaysh, with its mention of the fifth and the Prophet's chosen share, and the report of 'A'isha that Safiyya was from the safi, are cited. Its end after the Prophet is established by the consensus of the nation, since Abu Bakr, 'Umar and 'Uthman and later rulers did not take it.

• Safqa (the single deal: combining two things or two contracts in one transaction, and how the lawful and the unlawful within it are treated)

  A safqa is one stroke of clapping and, in law, a contract; people who clap hands on a sale are said to have struck a deal. When a single deal joins two things that cannot be joined, such as two sisters in one marriage, the contract is void for both. When it joins two things each of which may be contracted, the price is shared between them by value or by parts. When it joins two things neither of which may be contracted, such as wine and carrion, the contract is void by agreement. When a deal joins what is lawful with what is not, it stands for the lawful part by its share of the price, and the schools differ where the unlawful part has no value, the Hanafis and Hanbalis in one way and the Shafi'is and Hanbalis in another. When it joins two contracts of different rules, such as sale and hire, each stands.

• Compulsory public loan

• Currency exchange (sarf)

• Financial derivatives

• Distribution in Islam

• The economic condition of the Arabs before Islam

  In al-Raheeq al-Makhtum's account the economy followed the social condition: trade was the chief means of livelihood and needed a security found only in the sacred months, when the fairs of Ukaz, Dhu al-Majaz and Majanna were held; crafts such as weaving and tanning belonged to Yemen, al-Hira and the Syrian marches, while the interior had farming, herding and women's spinning, goods were prey to war, and poverty, hunger and nakedness were general.

• Economic freedom in Islam

• Economy as moderation

• The global financial crisis of 2008 (an Islamic economic reading)

• Forbidden livelihoods in Islam

  Al-Maraghi says Islam forbids only work that attacks the mind, the person, property or honour (p. 17). He lists killing for hire, making and trading wine and drugs, all forms of gambling including tormenting animals, theft, sorcery and fortune-telling, and false testimony (pp. 17-19). On begging he allows it only in total need, citing Ahmad ibn Hanbal (p. 21). This is the author's classification.

• Free resources and their share

• Ghabn (undervaluation) in sale

• Habl al-habala (the offspring of the offspring)

  Habl al-habala means, in the lexicon, the young carried in a she-camel's womb, and in the technical sense the offspring of an offspring: a female animal bears, then her daughter bears. The jurists agree that selling it is forbidden and the contract void, and they differ on what the hadith of Ibn Umar forbids.

• The enterprise's own share (haqq al-mashru)

• Hedwig glass

  Beakers cut in a rock-crystal style, probably Islamic-made, that turned up in medieval Central European treasuries.

• Sending capital to trade on a gratuitous basis (ibda')

  The Kuwaiti encyclopedia defines ibda' as sending capital with someone who trades with it as a gift, the whole profit belonging to the owner. It distinguishes it from qirad (mudaraba), a profit partnership, and from loan and agency. The Encyclopedia states that it is a valid contract and that its wording may be explicit, using the term ibda' or bidaa'a, or implicit. The four schools differ on how to classify the phrase 'take this as a mudaraba, all profit mine': the Hanbalis call it a void mudaraba, the Hanafis a valid ibda', and the Malikis a mudaraba in name only. It then treats the trustee's position, the powers of the one who sends capital and of the agent, liability, disputes between the agent and the owner, and the causes of termination.

• Substitution (ibdal) in fiqh

  Ibdal means putting one thing in place of another; in fiqh it is a kind of disposition whose default is permission, when made by someone competent over what he may dispose of. The Kuwaiti encyclopedia sets out the schools' differences on its places: substituting the obligated item in zakat and expiation, substituting prices and goods before receipt in exchange contracts, compulsory substitution in leases, and substituting the endowed property itself. It does not choose between these positions on the pages read.

• Young male camel (ibn labun)

  The Kuwaiti encyclopedia defines ibn labun as the male young of a she-camel that has completed its second year and entered its third; it is so named because its mother has borne another and so has milk. On zakat, the jurists except the Hanafis agree that it takes the place of a bint makhad (a she-camel in her second year) when that is lacking, because the basis for camel zakat is females; some schools allow an older male to stand in place of the required female. The Hanafis say it does not stand in its place, and the value is paid instead. On blood money, the four schools agree that it is not one of the categories of the heavy diya; the Hanafis and Hanbalis forbid taking it in the light diya; the Shafi'is and Malikis say it is given in the light diya and is one of its categories.

• Young male camel in its second year (ibn makhad)

  The Kuwaiti encyclopedia defines ibn makhad as the young of a she-camel that has entered its second year; it is so named because its mother has joined the pregnant (makhad) even if she is not pregnant. On zakat, the basic rule is that it is not sufficient; the Hanafis allow taking it at the value of a bint makhad, since value suffices for every kind of zakat in their view. On blood money, it may be counted among the categories of the light diya according to the Hanafis, the Hanbalis and one Shafi'i view, and the Malikis, and the accepted Shafi'i view, deny it. The jurists agree that it is not one of the categories of the heavy diya.

• Release of a debt or right (ibra')

  The Kuwaiti encyclopedia defines release (ibra') as the dropping by a person of a right he holds against another's liability or in his hands. Where the right is owed by no one, such as a right of pre-emption, leaving it is a pure dropping, not a release. The encyclopedia gives its rulings: release is permitted in general, may be obligatory, forbidden or disliked according to the case, and its general ruling is recommendation. The jurists differ on whether it is a dropping or a transfer of ownership, and the encyclopedia separates a release of dropping from a release of receipt. It then treats its pillars, wording, acceptance and rejection, the conditions on the releasor, the released and the matter released, the conditions on the release itself, its scope in general and particular terms, its time and its reach to persons other than the released, its conditional, dependent and qualified forms, release on partial payment or for a consideration, its retraction, its nullity, and its effects in this world and the next.

• Hoarding (ihtikar)

  Al-Maraghi defines hoarding as withholding goods to reduce supply and raise prices (p. 34). He calls its modern form the black market and describes the hoarder as a diseased limb of the community (p. 34). He cites the hadith 'whoever hoards is a sinner' and notes that some hadith wordings in the chapter are weak (p. 34). The ruler may compel a hoarder to sell in necessity, after Ibn Hajar al-Haytami (p. 36). The ban extends beyond food to medicine, cloth and fuel, after Abu Yusuf (p. 35). The book reports an anecdote from al-Ghazali about a merchant who gave away his excess profit (p. 35). Muhyi al-Din Afifi Ahmad gives Ibn Qudama's definition: a foodstuff people need, withheld so as to harm them (p. 143), and cites the hadith on hoarding for forty nights without giving its grade (p. 144).

• Ihya al-mawat (reviving dead land)

• Inma (the growth of property by trade, husbandry or increase, and its rulings; also the game that goes out of sight)

  Inma is lexically the causing of an increase, and growth is an increase, either real, as by birth or trade, or assumed, as by property remaining in one's hand. It is narrower than ziyada, since ziyada may come from outside while inma comes from the thing itself. Growing property is lawful: the law allowed sale, trade, partnership and mudaraba, and the preservation of property is one of its purposes. Its ruling depends on the intention: it is obligatory to gain enough for oneself and dependants, recommended beyond that to help the poor, permitted for comfort, and disliked for boasting and rivalry. One who has control of property without owning it, such as a guardian, executor, agent, judge or supervisor, may grow it by lawful authority. Growth by what is unlawful, such as usury, gambling or trade in wine, is forbidden. The other sense, the going out of sight of game after it is shot, is treated in the entry on hunting, with the disputed view of Ibn Abbas.

• The invisible hand and its precedence in Islamic thought

• Islamic economics: doctrine, system and science

• Unity of genus and kind (ittihad al-jins wal-naw')

  In the language, jins is a kind of any thing and is broader than naw', which is a narrower sort; ittihad is the merging of two things until they become one. The schools differ on what unity of genus means: for the Hanafis it is unity of the specific name and of the purpose; for the Malikis, equal or close benefit; for the Shafi'is, the two items share one specific name; for the Hanbalis, kinds that share one root even when their purposes differ. Unity of genus is a condition for a valid zakat payment on livestock other than camels when the payment comes from the same genus as the nisab, and it restricts some transactions. In the sale of one ribawi good for another of the same genus, unequal exchange is forbidden and the sale is void.

• Fixtures and right of tenure (kadik)

  In the jurists' terms the kadik is what is fixed in a shop as a permanent part of it, such as a building, fitted shelves and locks; the word can also mean things set in a shop without being fixed, or the sum paid for the right of use, which is called khuluw. A tenant who builds with the administrator's leave has a right of tenure in an endowed property, provided he pays the fair rent and does not harm the endowment. The Hanafis and Malikis treat the fixture as property that can be sold and inherited, while the Shafi'is and Hanbalis treat the building as the tenant's own and deal with its removal at the end of a lease. The Hanafis do not allow endowing a kadik, the Malikis do. The Malikis allow pre-emption in it; the Hanafis and Shafi'is do not allow it for a building sold without its ground.

• Surety (kafala)

  Kafala is surety in the lexicon. In the terminology it is joining the surety's obligation to the principal's in a claim for a person, a debt or a thing; the schools differ on the wording of the definition. It is lawful by the Qur'an, the Sunna and consensus, and has five pillars: the words of the surety, the surety, the creditor, the principal debtor and the thing secured. Debts, things and persons may be secured, and the surety for a person is disputed. A surety who acted at the principal's request may claim back from him what he paid, and the surety ends with payment of the debt, release, delivery of the thing, or the death of the person secured.

• Herbage and pasture (kala')

  Kala' means herbage, dry or green; in law it is grass that grows without human work. The jurists agree that grass growing on open land such as valleys, mountains and unowned ground is shared, and no one may forbid another to take it or to graze his animals there, on the hadith that Muslims share three things: water, fire and herbage. Grass on owned land belongs to its owner, who may bar entry, though no one may be stopped from taking grass he cannot find elsewhere; the Malikis allow grazing on unplanted ground and do not allow grass in unplanted land to be stopped unless a field nearby is at risk. The imam may reserve unowned land for the herds of the poor-tax and the sadaqa and for the weak, according to the Hanafis, Malikis, Hanbalis and the sounder Shafi'i view, and most jurists allow grazing in the sanctuary of Mecca.

• Deferred debt (kali)

  In the lexicon kali is deferral and loan; the jurists use it for debt. Among the forbidden sales is selling debt for debt (bay' al-kali bil-kali), based on a report of Ibn Umar; Ibn Hajar weakened one route of the report, and Ibn al-Mundhir reports agreement that debt for debt is not permitted. Al-Qarafi's reason is that when a contract burdens both sides' obligations, claims come from both directions and disputes multiply. The sale of debt for a present specific item is a matter of detail and disagreement.

• Hidden treasure (kanz), fiqh rulings

  Kanz, in lexicon, is gathering and storing, buried wealth, or any gathered abundance; in law, the majority take it as what the people of the Jahiliyya buried, applying to any property, while the Shafi'is limit it to gold and silver and the Hanafis define it as property placed under the ground by any creator; kanz is wider than rikaz.

• Earning a living (kasb)

  Kasb is, in the terminology, an action that brings a benefit or removes a harm. Earning enough for oneself and one's dependants is an obligation; earning beyond that is recommended to help the poor and kin, and permitted for more wealth and comfort while keeping faith and honour. The jurists discuss whether wealth or poverty is better; whether earning or devoting oneself to worship is better; the best kinds of earning (jihad first, then agriculture, then trade, then craft); begging by one able to earn (forbidden, though if given it may be taken); compelling an indebted man to earn (the Hanbalis allow it, others not); the earning of children; working in a mosque (disliked); and what to do with wealth gained unlawfully, which is returned to its owners or given away. Wealth inherited of unknown source is lawful by consensus.

• Niche or opening in a wall (kawwa)

  Kawwa, in lexicon, is a hole in a wall, plural kawat or kuwa, also called rawshan; in law it is an opening made in the wall of a house for light, or a recess cut into it without passing through, for setting goods; some jurists explain it as a niche.

• Measure (kayl), fiqh rulings

  Kayl, in lexicon, is the act of measuring, the measure by which quantity is known, such as a qafiz, a mudd or a sa', and the vessel used for measuring; a kayli is what is measured by volume. Measuring tells a thing's volume and weighing its weight.

• Al-kharaj bil-daman (yield follows liability)

• Khiyar al-ghabn (option of fraud in price)

  Khiyar al-ghabn is the option the defrauded party holds in some schools for a price below or above the experts' valuation; ghabn in language is shortfall, and to cheat someone in a sale, and Ibn Najim defines it as a shortfall in the price in sale and purchase, with the like in the counter-value of other exchange contracts. Ghabn has effect in many places, among them riba exchanges between goods of one genus, hoarding, and forbidden sales such as najsh, meeting the caravans, the townsman's sale for the desert-dweller, the musarrah, selling over another's sale, the sale to the trusting buyer (mustarsil), sales of trust, and verbal deceit joined with ghabn; Ibn Qudama made ghabn the pivot of three options: meeting the caravans, najsh and the mustarsil, the last being a true ghabn option as a betrayal by the seller after the buyer relied on him and left bargaining. The schools in brief: the Hanafis give the defrauded no option unless he was deceived, on the preponderant view, or the ghabn fell on a minor; the Malikis in one view give the option to the defrauded absolutely or if he is a mustarsil; the Hanbalis restrict it to the mustarsil. The ghabn that counts for return is the gross one, defined by the Hanafis, the preponderant Maliki view and one Hanbali view as what traders' custom estimates, the measure being the valuers' assessment; the second Maliki and Hanbali view fixes it at one third, and a third Maliki view at more than a third. The option requires the defrauded to have been ignorant of the ghabn at the contract; some holders of the option argue from the hadith of Habban ibn Munqidh which includes the stipulation of no cheating, while one who proceeds with knowledge has no option. Its effect, when trust and unusual ghabn are proved, is the choice between annulment and confirmation without charge, with no claim for the arsh. On the Hanafi view as contained in the Majalla the option of ghabn with deceit lapses by the goods perishing, being consumed, changed or newly defective, by silence and dealing after knowledge of the ghabn, and by the death of the defrauded, whose claim does not pass to the heir, while the deceiver's death does not prevent it. The option of ghabn in the bargaining sale is denied by the Hanafis, Shafiis and Hanbalis and by the Malikis on the preponderant view, the Malikis and Hanbalis restricting it to the mustarsil. The Hanafis transmit three views on bare gross ghabn in the bargaining sale: no return at all, return absolutely, and return only when joined with deceit, which is preponderant. The mustarsil is for the Malikis the one who surrenders to his seller, for the Hanbalis the one ignorant of the goods' value who is not skilled in trading, and in another wording from Ahmad the one who does not bargain; the operative trait is inexperience in trading, and Ibn Qudama held that the knowledgeable man who would have known had he paused has no option if he hastened and was defrauded. Khalil of the Malikis states there is no return for ghabn even against custom, which is the well-known view though a view of return exists, and slight ghabn binds the contract by agreement; Ibn Rushd recorded no standing against ghabn in the bargaining sale and that standing against it is obligatory by consensus in the istirsal and istinama sale for the hadith of the Prophet's governor 'the ghabn of the mustarsil is wrongdoing', transmitted by al-Tabarani and recorded by al-Haythami who weakened it for Musa ibn Umayr al-A'ma in its chain. The Hanbalis affirm the ghabn option for the mustarsil alone on the preponderant view, among the issues Ibn Taymiyya chose in Ahmad's school, while a transmission noted by Ibn Abi Musa with the wording 'it was said' makes the ghabn binding on the mustarsil too. The Malikis affirm the option for the ghabn of a guardian over a minor or an agent over his principal to avert harm, and article 356 of the Majalla states that ghabn alone in an orphan's property invalidates the sale, the property of the waqf and the public treasury being alike; the option stands in the contract of purchase by their agreement, some restricting it to that and allowing sale with ghabn by the boy or the one acting for another since sale removes ownership. On the preponderant Maliki view its effect is rescission while the goods stand, none if they are lost, recourse then being to completing the price; it lapses by dealing in the goods and by their perishing or loss, in which case the principal and the ward recover the ghabn from the buyer, then from the seller who is the agent or guardian; the recovery is not limited to a third but covers every clear shortfall of the value, which Ibn Arafa deemed correct and which the transmissions of the Mudawwana require.

• Sufficiency (kifaya)

  Kifaya in the lexicon is what brings independence from others. In fiqh it has three senses: the important acts the lawgiver wants done without regard to who does them, which are the collective obligations (fard al-kifaya); a person's fitness for public duties; and meeting one's essential needs of food, clothing and housing to the level of one's condition. Collective obligations include bearing and giving testimony, taking in an abandoned child, washing, shrouding, praying over and burying the dead, and appointing an imam. Sufficiency is owed first by the person himself, then by his kin, then from the zakat, the public treasury and taxes levied by the ruler.

• Hire of a mount in turns (kira al-aqib)

  Hire of a mount in turns is letting a beast to two people, so that one rides for some days and the other for others, or one rides a stretch of the road and the other a further stretch; the name comes from each following the other in turns. Most jurists allow both forms, with custom followed where it exists and lots drawn if the two dispute who starts. The Hanbalis allow it only when the rider is named; the Shafi'is in the sounder view forbid it; the Hanafis and Malikis allow it.

• Kirdar (improvements on endowed or state land)

  Kirdar is a Persian word, called in Khwarazm the right of tenure. It refers to what is built or planted on land held in endowment on lease, and to lands the ruler has taken for the public treasury and given out for sharecropping. Tenants of such land may sell what they built, planted or filled with earth, once the kirdar is known, because what they made is theirs and they hold the right of tenure in the land.

• Clothing owed (kiswa)

  Kiswa in the lexicon is the garment one covers oneself with. A husband owes his wife clothing once she has made herself available to him as is due. A relative whose maintenance is owed must also be clothed, if he is well off, and the expiation of an oath requires clothing ten poor persons. The Hanafis measure the husband's clothing duty by his means, the Shafi'is and Hanbalis by what suffices her; the Malikis set a yearly provision in two seasons. A wife whose husband cannot clothe her may seek separation according to the Malikis, the preferred Shafi'i view and the Hanbalis; the Hanafis have the judge fix the clothing and let her borrow. If the husband does not provide, the arrears become a debt.

• Book, letter and writing (kitab)

  In jurisprudence kitab has three senses: a written letter, a document or covenant, and a book of learning. The letter carries rules, among them divorce by writing, on which the schools differ as to when it takes effect; the opening with the basmala; and the duty or courtesy of answering. The document sense rests on the Qur'an's command to write down debts. Books carry many rules: touching them without purity, using them for istinja, resting on them, selling, pawning, lending, hiring, endowing, stealing and destroying them. The schools differ on reading the books of the People of the Book and on selling a copy of the Qur'an, which the Hanafis, Malikis and Shafi'is allow and the Hanbalis forbid.

• Ceiling on agricultural ownership

• Pearl (lu'lu'), fiqh rulings

  Lu'lu' is the pearl, a hard, bright, round deposit formed in certain marine molluscs; its plural is lali.

• Lost property found (luqatah), fiqh rulings

  Luqatah, in lexicon, is a thing found lying and taken up; in law it is property lost by its owner and picked up by another, or a thing found lying and taken as a trust. It differs from the foundling, since the foundling is a human child and the luqatah is not.

• Binding force (luzum), fiqh and usul rulings

  Luzum, in lexicon, is staying with a thing and not parting from it; to be bound by money is to owe it, and divorce binds when its ruling takes effect, which is the ending of marriage. Jurists use luzum to mean obligation and necessity, and in contracts, the impossibility of rescission.

• Mal (property)

• Objectives of the Shari'a (maqasid al-shari'a)

  The objectives of the Shari'a are the purposes and wisdoms that the Lawgiver intends across all or most of the rulings, not confined to one kind of ruling. Al-Shatibi divides them into three: necessities (daruriyyat), needs (hajiyyat) and refinements (tahsiniyyat). Their detail is in the usul appendix.

• Things taken into possession (maqbud)

  A thing taken into possession is one held in the hand or in one's custody and control. The form of taking depends on the thing: measured, weighed or counted goods by measure, weight or count; movable goods by moving them; animals by walking them from the place of contract; land by handing over the keys once the buyer can use it; and the buyer's destruction of the goods counts as possession. Liability rules attach to such things in loan, goods on approval, pledge and loan.

• Ease of means (maysura) and respite for a debtor in hardship

  Maysura means ease and wealth, the opposite of hardship. The jurists agree that a debtor who is able to pay a due debt must pay without delay; one who refuses while able is a wrongdoer. A debtor whose insolvency is established before the judge or the creditor should be given respite until he is at ease. The jurists cite the verse on debt and hadiths praising respite: whoever grants respite to a debtor in hardship earns a charity for each day before the debt falls due, and whoever grants respite or remits the debt is shaded by God; and the story of the man who forgave those in hardship.

• Method of Islamic economics

• Ownership of minerals in Islam

• Measures (miqadir)

  Miqadir are measures: the means by which a thing is known as counted, measured by volume, weight or length. Their four kinds are volume (kayl), weight (wazn), length (dhar') and number ('adad). The basic units are the sa' and the mudd. Most jurists hold that the legal sa' is the sa' of Medina, four mudds, while Abu Hanifa holds it is the Iraqi sa'. The sa' fixes the zakat al-fitr, the expiation for deliberately breaking the Ramadan fast, the expiation for zihar, the ransom for ihram, the wife's maintenance and the water for ablution. Jurists also name the 'araq, the faraq, the qadah, the qirba, the qist, the qafiz and the qullah, each with its own quantity and rulings. The entry is complete from p.14857 to p.14887.

• The balance (mizan) and the standards of weight and measure

  The balance (mizan) is one of the two instruments for measuring the fixed quantities of the law, the other being measure (kayl). All Muslims agree that cheating in weight is forbidden, the Qur'an threatens those who cheat, and it treats any shortfall in measure or weight as corruption on earth. The general rule is that the standard for weighed and measured goods is the usage known in Makka and Madina in the Prophet's time; the jurists differ in detail. The Hanafis follow the text first and custom next; Abu Yusuf takes custom in all cases; the Malikis follow what the law states and then custom; the Shafi'is follow the usage of Makka and Madina; the Hanbalis take Madina's usage for measure and Makka's for weight. The law fixes no punishment for cheating, so it falls under discretionary punishment (ta'zir).

• The silent trade

  The dumb-barter of the gold land opposite Sijilmasa beyond the great river: goods left ashore are found flanked by columns of gold — take the gold and leave the goods, take back your goods, or leave both asking more — a custom famous in the Maghrib and matched, al-Mas'udi notes, by a nation of farthest Khurasan on a great river.

• Unlawful tolls and levies (mukus)

  Mukus is the plural of maks, which in the lexicon means loss and injustice. It names the dues taken from sellers in markets in the pre-Islamic period, and the toll that a collector takes from merchants entering a town. The jurists distinguish it from the tithe on trade, the general collection, the levies and the kharaj on land. Some levies are blameworthy and forbidden, the hadith on Uqba ibn 'Amir stating that the one who takes a toll does not enter Paradise; others are not, such as the half tithe Umar imposed on the trade of the protected people. Most jurists hold that a toll paid cannot be counted as zakat; the Malikis allow a pilgrim to be excused from pilgrimage when the toll is heavy.

• Set-off of debts (muqasa)

  Muqasa is the set-off of a debt owed to a person against a debt that person owes his debtor, one of the ways debts are discharged. It is lawful by transmitted and rational evidence, voluntary by the consent of both parties or compelled when two debts meet under conditions. The jurists differ on the conditions by kind, quality, due date and term, and apply it to zakat, maintenance, usurpation, deposits, agency, salam, guarantee, waqf and bequest.

• Division by shares (muqasama)

  Muqasama is the division of a shared thing into shares; each partner takes his portion. The jurists use the word in several chapters: how a grandfather shares the estate with the brothers, the kharaj on land taken as a share of the produce, a partner's demand that common property be divided, and the picking of fruit and its division between the owner and the collector. It is broader than the mahaya (time-sharing of use) and the muhasa (pro-rata sharing when assets fall short of debts).

• Barter (muqayada)

  Muqayada is, in the lexicon, an exchange of one thing for another. The jurists define it as the sale of goods for goods, and the Ottoman Majalla defines it as the exchange of a thing for a thing other than the two monies. It is a kind of sale, and its general rules apply except those that concern the price. Its specific conditions: neither side is money, each side is a specific item, both sides are delivered together, and the rules against excess in exchange of the same kind (riba al-fadl) apply.

• Hiring by the day (muyawama)

  Muyawama means dealing with a person by the day: fixing the period of a use to one day or several days. The jurists agree that it is lawful when both parties accept it. The legal day runs from the second dawn to sunset, though custom may fix it differently, as the Majalla does for a worker hired for a day. Muyawama differs from a fixed term (ajal), from a time limit (ta'qit), and from monthly hiring (mushahara), in that its unit is the day and its object is the use.

• Debased coin (nabahraja)

  In the usage of the Hanafis, nabahraja is a worthless or counterfeit dirham, or one that traders reject, or one struck outside the ruler's mint. If silver predominates it is treated as pure coin, and dealing in it is allowed even when its alloy is unknown; some jurists require zakat on it. If the alloy predominates, its value is assessed if it circulates or is held for trade, and zakat is due if that value reaches the nisab; otherwise, and unless its silver alone reaches the silver nisab, no zakat is due. Good coin may not be exchanged for it except equal for equal. The entry refers the detail to the entry on counterfeit coin (zuyuf).

• Liquid cash from goods (nadd)

  In the lexicon, nadd is goods turned into dirhams or dinars. The Malikis require, for zakat on trade goods held by a dealer, that some money has come in, even a single dirham; without that, no zakat. The Shafi'is add the profit to the capital unless it has been realised, and once the whole is realised in capital's kind the profit has its own year. Realisation affects the dissolution of a partnership, the dissolution of a profit-sharing partnership (mudaraba), its continuation after a party's death, and the making of a second mudaraba, according to the Malikis and Hanbalis.

• Rarity and the rare case (nadira)

  Nadira, in the lexicon, is the falling away or the rare appearance of a thing; in the usage of the jurists, the rare case is one that is seldom found, even if it does not contradict analogy, and the anomaly (shadhdh) is one that does. The rule in law is to follow the common case, but the law sometimes sets aside the common case out of mercy, as in the child born in six months and the sandal and mat, and sometimes sets aside both, as in the testimony of children in property. A rare case that persists joins the common one; the Zarkashi divides cases where a rare case joins the common one into four. There are cases in contracts of salam, partnership and waiting periods, and the Malikis treat a rare find of metal as subject to the fifth.

• Inciting the bidding (najsh)

  Najash, in the lexicon, is inciting; in usage it is raising the bid for goods above their worth without intending to buy, in order to draw another into buying. Most jurists hold it forbidden on the authority of the Prophet's prohibition. The Malikis hold that bidding above the value is forbidden by agreement, and that bidding up to or below the value is disputed. Most jurists hold the sale valid, since the act is the bidder's and not the contractor's, while a view of Ahmad holds it void. The Hanafis and Malikis give the buyer an option when the seller knew of the shill; the sounder Shafi'i view gives no option; the Hanbalis give an option where the deal carries a loss that people do not usually accept.

• Nama' (increase and yield)

  Nama' is, in the lexicon, growth; for the jurists, the increase, benefit and income a thing produces. It is divided by lawfulness, nature, connection and fact or estimate, and its rulings touch zakat, dower, sale, pledge, pre-emption and usurpation.

• Naqd (cash payment)

  Naqd, in the lexicon, is cash, the opposite of deferred payment; it also means handing over money in coin, telling good coin from bad, and coinage of gold, silver or other currency. A contract's agreed terms, whether cash or deferred, must be kept; exchanging gold for gold or silver for silver requires cash on both sides, and salam requires the capital to be paid in the session by most jurists. A debt may be sold to its debtor if the price is paid before the parties part. The blood money for unintended killing is paid in instalments over three years. The buyer need not pay during an option period; a condition to pay during it is disputed, and the Malikis forbid conditional payment in some contracts. A seller who pays the assayer's fee is disputed among the schools.

• Deferred payment and sale on credit (nasa')

  Nasi'a, in the lexicon, is delay; in law it is the deferral of the price or of the goods, the opposite of cash payment (naqd). All agree that deferral is forbidden in exchanges where the two sides may not differ in amount, citing the saying 'like for like, hand to hand'; where the goods are of two kinds, the difference is allowed hand to hand but deferral is not; deferral between goods of one kind or one shared ribawi cause is forbidden without dispute; salam is allowed as a concession. For a partner, an agent or a profit-sharing manager selling on credit, the Shafi'is and Hanbalis forbid it without permission, and where permission is general they differ; the Hanafis allow it on a customary term. The entry also gives the Hanbali distinctions between an agent and a profit-sharing partner, and the rule on a sale that stands if the terms are changed for the better.

• Scattered gifts (nathar)

  Nathar, in the lexicon, is the scattering of a thing, such as nuts, almonds, sugar or coins. It is different from tawzi' (sharing out). On whether a scattering may be seized, the hadith that plunder is not lawful points to a ban. The Hanafis allow it if the giver permits, and what one takes becomes one's own; if it falls in one's lap or on one's garment, it is one's own if one meant to take it or spread a lap for it. The Malikis forbid taking more than one eats with one's companions when a thing is scattered to be eaten, and dislike scrambling for it unless permission was given.

• Nationalisation (tamim)

• The supervisor of an endowment (nazir)

  A nazir of an endowment, in the jurists' usage, is the one who manages the endowment, guards it and its yield, and carries out the stipulations of the founder. He differs from the qayyim, appointed by the judge to carry out bequests and manage the affairs of minors and the insane, and from the mutawalli, to whom the disposal of the endowment's property is entrusted; Ibn Abidin treats these as one in usage. The wasi is wider than the nazir. The rules on who appoints him, his conditions, powers, removal and plurality are treated under the entry on endowment.

• Nisab (wealth threshold)

  Nisab in fiqh is the wealth threshold that obliges zakat; the Kuwaiti Fiqh Encyclopedia treats the requirement of completing the nisab, the nisab of rikaz, and the time at which its existence counts.

• Nuqra (bullion)

  Nuqra, in the lexicon, is a piece of gold or silver melted down; before melting it is bullion. Zakat is due on it once it reaches the threshold, and it is combined with coins of the same metal. Selling it for coin of its kind, or coin for it, follows the rules of exchange. Cutting dirhams is disliked by the Malikis and Hanbalis; partnership with nuqra as capital is valid for the Hanafis, Malikis and a Hanbali view if it circulates like coin, and disallowed by the Shafi'i rival view and the Hanbali school.

• Nuqud (money in fiqh)

  Nuqud, the plural of naqd, means in fiqh either gold and silver, coined or not, the minted coin, or anything used as a medium of exchange. Dealing in money is lawful by the Qur'an and the Sunna, and money serves as the measure by which goods are valued. The natural coins are the dinar and the dirham; the conventional ones are fulus, debased dirhams and paper money. Several rulings are fixed in money: the zakat threshold, the least dower, the theft threshold, blood money and the poll tax. Minting belongs to the ruler alone; clipping coins is disliked by several; decorating with coins is subject to rules. In contracts the local currency is meant when none is named; coins are specified by the Shafi'is and Hanbalis but not by the Hanafis and Malikis, and the schools differ on bullion and coins as capital. The rulings on loans, pledges, hire, endowment and salam are set out in the same way. When the value of fulus changes, the schools differ on how debts are paid, and Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn al-Qayyim and al-Maqrizi held that stable money is the basis of justice.

• Opportunity cost and choosing between benefits

• Oriental carpets in Renaissance painting

  The appearance of Islamic carpets in European painting from the 14th century on; documents East–West trade, with patterns named after the painters.

• Perfect competition

• Price, value and price-fixing

• Production in Islam

• Profit in Islam

• Maximisation of profit and minimisation of loss

• Private and public interest and the invisible hand

• Appointed guardian (qayyim)

  In the jurists' terms a qayyim is a person appointed by the judge to carry out the bequest of someone who named no executor, to manage the affairs of minors, the insane and the spendthrift, and to guard the property of absent persons who have no agent. His authority comes after that of the father, the grandfather and their executors. The judge limits what he may do to what the judge has authorised; most jurists forbid him to buy for himself; and the judge may dismiss him, though not the executor of an original guardian.

• Value (qima)

  In the lexicon qima is the price of a thing as assessed. The jurists define it as what a thing is valued at, serving as a measure with no addition or reduction. It is distinct from thaman (the price agreed by the parties) and si'r (the price set by a seller or ruler). Value is owed for things that have no equivalent in kind (qimi) when they must be made good, when an equivalent cannot be had for a fungible item (mithli), in a sale annulled over a dispute about price, and for a hunting animal killed in the sacred state, where the owner receives its value and God the like. The schools differ on the time at which value is fixed: the Hanafis and Malikis use the day of receipt or of usurpation, the Hanbalis the day of loss, and the Shafi'is the highest value from receipt to loss.

• Gambling and speculation in exchanges

• Non-fungible goods (qimiyyat)

  Non-fungible goods (qimiyyat) are items with no equivalent in the market, or whose equivalents differ noticeably in value, such as livestock, goods and property; they are the opposite of fungible goods (mithliyyat). Sale and hire of non-fungible goods are valid by agreement. The schools differ on salam: the Malikis allow it for every non-fungible good, the Shafi'is for those that can be described, such as cloth and livestock, and the Hanafis refuse it except for cases they approve on grounds of preference. On loan the Hanafis refuse it, the Shafi'is refuse it in the preferred view for goods that cannot be fixed by description, and the Malikis allow it. Most jurists hold that non-fungible goods cannot serve as capital in a partnership.

• Qirad (mudaraba)

• Lots in distribution (qur'a)

• Rada'a (poor quality): the rules on giving poor goods in zakat, on exchanging good for poor, and on the description of goods in contracts

  Rada'a in the lexicon is the opposite of goodness: baseness and defect. One may not give poor goods in place of good ones due for zakat, and the mean is to be taken. Most jurists hold that good and poor goods of the riba kinds are alike, so exchange of equal weight is allowed and excess is forbidden. Several schools require the quality or poorness to be stated in a salam contract, and the Malikis, Hanbalis and some Shafi'is require matching quality in a transfer of debt. The lender need not accept poorer goods in place of good ones in a loan.

• Radd (return and restitution): of goods to their owner, of a contract, of a witness, and of an oath

  Radd in the lexicon is turning back, refusal and sending back; in law it means returning a thing to its owner or rightful holder, and in several cases the annulment of a contract. The property of another must be returned at once when taken unlawfully; in non-binding contracts a return is by annulment, and a void contract is undone, while the Hanafis annul a defective one. A return is lost by correcting the contract, by renewing it, or by the loss of an option; the jurists differ on correcting a defective contract. The Hanafis distinguish a return by judgment from a return by agreement, while the majority do not. The property of a ward is returned at maturity and sound judgment. A witness's testimony is set aside on suspicion. When the defendant refuses the oath, the jurists differ on whether the judge decides against him or refers the oath to the claimant. For goods taken unlawfully the return is compulsory; if they are lost, the like or the value is due. The Hanafis hold a thief who has been punished owes no damages. The cost of return falls on the one who must return.

• Raqaba (the neck; the person as a slave): its place in wiping the neck in ablution, in divorce and in zihar when attached to the neck, and in manumission

  Raqaba in the lexicon is the neck, and by a figure of speech the whole person; it also means a slave, as in the phrase 'freeing a neck'. Wiping the neck in ablution is recommended by the Hanafis, disliked by the Malikis and not recommended by the Hanbalis; the Shafi'is add washing the side of the neck to the lengthening of the white mark. If a husband attaches divorce to his wife's neck, the divorce takes effect. If he likens his wife's neck to his mother's, the majority hold it a zihar, while the Hanafis do not. The term raqaba names a slave in manumission, the expiations and contracts of writing-off.

• Raqm (the marking of a price on goods, and pictures on cloth): sale by the written price, and the decorated cloth

  Raqm in the lexicon is the weaving of cloth; technically it is the mark that shows the price for which a sale takes place, or the price written on the cloth. A sale by the written price is valid when both know the price; when both are ignorant it is void according to the majority, and the Hanbalis hold it valid if the ignorant party learns the price before they part. A hadith forbids images in houses but excepts a mark on cloth.

• Ray': agricultural yield, rental proceeds, and waqf revenue in Islamic jurisprudence

  Ray' lexically denotes growth, increase, and elevated ground, and in Islamic jurisprudence it signifies the agricultural produce of land, the fruits of trees, or the rental revenues derived from real estate and leased assets, in contrast to profit (ribh) generated through commerce. Legal transactions such as endowments (waqf), bequests (wasiyya), sharecropping (muzara'a), and agricultural irrigation partnerships (musaqat) may be established upon future yield, and scholars disagreed over whether an endower may stipulate the waqf's proceeds for himself: the Hanafis and Hanbalis permit it, whereas the Malikis and Shafi'is disallow it. Revenues of an endowment are distributed in accordance with the founder's stipulations, though maintenance and upkeep of the underlying property take precedence over distributing income so that the physical asset is preserved. Bequeathing the perpetual or temporary usufruct and proceeds of an estate is valid, granting ownership of the property to heirs while granting income to the legatee, and irrigation partnerships for a proportional share of fruit are valid. Sharecropping for an undivided percentage of agricultural output is permissible according to the majority of Companions and jurists, and an unlawful usurper of real property is liable for fair rental yield according to the Malikis, Shafi'is, and Hanbalis. Zakat on agricultural produce and fruits is obligatory upon land output as established in surah al-Baqarah: 267 and surah al-An'am: 141, the legal reason being actual fruitful growth, excluding spontaneously growing firewood or wild weeds not intended for cultivation.

• Rent of land in Islam

• Restricted ownership

• Usury (riba)

• Riba in the rulings: the forbidden excess in exchange and in delay, its kinds, its causes and its rulings

  Riba is excess in the lexical sense; in the jurists' usage it is an excess on one of two counter-values in an exchange, or an excess on a debt in return for delay, and the schools define it differently. It is forbidden by the Qur'an, the Sunna and consensus, is a major sin, and is counted among the seven destructive sins. The Hanafis, Malikis and Hanbalis divide riba of sale into excess and delay, and the Shafi'is into three kinds. The six items named in the hadith are gold, silver, wheat, barley, dates and salt; most jurists extend the rule to other items sharing its cause, and the schools differ on that cause. Related questions include 'inah, muhaqala and muzabana, the mud 'ajwa case, and riba in the abode of war, where the jurists differ.

• Profit (ribh): lawful and unlawful gain, profit from another's property, profit-sharing in partnership and investment, and zakat on trade profit

  Ribh is gain in trade; its relatives are growth (nama') and income (ghalla), and growth is the wider term. Lawful profit comes from a lawful contract such as sale, mudaraba or partnership, and is lawful by consensus; unlawful profit comes from a forbidden transaction, such as riba or gambling. On profit made from another's property in one's hand, the Hanafis hold it not lawful to the user, the Malikis and the preferred Shafi'i view give it to the user, and the Hanbalis give it to the owner. All agree that the share of profit between owner and worker must be fixed in a mudaraba. In partnership the profit follows the agreed shares, and the schools differ on whether unequal capital may bring equal shares. Profit on trade goods is added to the principal for zakat by the Malikis, the preferred Shafi'i view and the Hanbalis, while Abu Hanifa has each new gain run its own year.

• Rida' (consent in contracts): its meaning, its place among the choices of the Hanafis and the majority, its defects, and its means of expression

  Rida' in the lexicon is contentment and a glad heart; in the Hanafi usage it is the choice brought to its full end so that its effect shows, and for the majority it is intent to do an act without coercion. The Hanafis distinguish choice from consent: a choice is valid under coercion short of compulsion, while consent is defective under it, so marriage, divorce and return are valid without consent in their view; the majority hold intent and consent the basis of all contracts. The lawful taking of another's property depends on consent, by the verse 'unless it be trade by mutual consent'. Defects of consent are coercion, ignorance, error, deception and exploitation; some make a contract void and others only open to annulment. Consent is inward and is expressed by word, act, writing, sign, or silence in a place where speech is needed; a virgin's silence counts as consent to marriage.

• Rikaz (buried treasure of the pre-Islamic period): what is owed on it (one fifth), its kinds, where it is found, to whom it belongs, and how the fifth is spent

  Rikaz in the lexicon is what is fixed and hidden in the ground; for the majority it is the treasure buried by people of the pre-Islamic period, and it may name any property, though the Shafi'is restrict it to gold and silver. For the majority a mine is not rikaz, while the Hanafis use the word for both mines and hoards. One fifth is due on rikaz by agreement, following the saying that there is a fifth on buried treasure; it is due on little and much according to the majority, and the Shafi'is require a nisab. Anyone who finds it, Muslim, dhimmi, child or madman, owes the fifth according to the schools. If it is found on unowned ground, the finder takes the rest after the fifth; if it is on owned ground, most jurists give it to the owner, while Abu Yusuf and Ahmad give it to the finder. The fifth is spent like the booty in the Hanafi, Maliki and Hanbali views, and like zakat in the Shafi'i view. In the abode of war the schools differ on the rule.

• Rimad (ashes): whether ashes of pure and impure things are pure, whether tayammum may be made with them, and whether they are property

  Rimad (ashes) in the lexicon is the fine dust of burnt coal, what remains after burning. There is no dispute that the ash of a pure thing burned is pure; the Prophet used the ashes of a mat to staunch a wound. The jurists differ on the ash of an impure thing: Abu Hanifa, some Malikis and one Hanbali view hold it pure because fire changes the substance, while the Shafi'is and most Malikis hold it impure. Most jurists forbid tayammum with ashes because they are not of the earth, while the Hanafis allow it when made from stone. The ash of a pure thing is property that may be sold; the ash of an impure thing is not a valuable property for those who hold it impure.

• Riq (bondage): its kinds and causes, the rights and duties of owner and slave, the marital and sexual rules, the slave's worship, transactions, crimes and inheritance, and how bondage ends

  Riq (bondage) is a person's being owned by another; freedom is the original state, and the jurists set out its rules at length. Slaves enter ownership by capture in war, by the offspring of a slave-woman, by purchase, gift, bequest and inheritance; a free Muslim may not be enslaved. A non-Muslim may not keep a Muslim slave, and must sell or free him. Owning a relative within the prohibited degrees frees him. The owner may command the slave in what is not sinful, but the work must be within his strength; he must provide food, clothing and care, and may not torment or disfigure him. The owner may sell, pledge or give the slave, and the schools differ on sale on condition of freedom, on separating relatives in sale, and on the slave's property. In worship the slave is lighter: Friday is not obligatory, the owner pays his zakat, and his vowed fast and i'tikaf need leave; his hajj is not obligatory until freed. In marriage a free man may marry a slave-woman under conditions; a slave's divorces and waiting period are counted by his condition. In crimes, a free man is not retaliated against for killing a slave; a slave who kills a free man is retaliated against; the value of a slave is owed; the hadd for a slave is half of a free man's. The co-owned and the partly freed slave have their own rules. Bondage ends by manumission, by writing-off, by the status of mudabbar or umm walad, by legal manumission and by bequest.

• Rishwa (bribery): its definition, its ruling for giver and taker, the paying to avert harm, and its effects on judges and rulings

  Rishwa in the lexicon is a fee or reward paid to secure a purpose; in the jurists' usage it is what is given to void a right or to establish a falsehood, and it is distinct from favours, forbidden gain, gift, alms and presents. It is forbidden to the one who takes and to the one who gives, is a major sin, and taking, offering and accepting it are all forbidden, as is acting as broker; the Prophet cursed the giver, the taker and the broker. The majority hold that a person may pay a bribe to avert wrong or harm or to gain a right, and that the guilt falls on the taker. Taking gifts or bribes is forbidden to the ruler, the governors, the judges, the muftis and the witnesses, and the forbidding of it to the judge is agreed. Obtaining the office of judge by bribery is forbidden, and the majority hold the rulings of a judge who took a bribe void, while the Hanafi, Shafi'i and Hanbali schools hold that a judge is removed by such wrongdoing. No fixed punishment applies, and discretionary punishment is the rule.

• Risk-taking in Islam

• Rizq (stipends from the treasury): who is paid, the register of the fighters, and the three groups the imam supports

  Rizq in the lexicon is provision, given in this world or the next; in the jurists' usage it is what is fixed from the treasury by need and sufficiency, monthly or daily, and it is distinguished from 'ata' which is set yearly by a person's service and merit in religion. Judges, agents and governors may be paid from the treasury; al-Qarafi holds that such pay may be cut, reduced, increased or changed as the public interest requires. The imam should keep a register of the paid fighters, give each what he needs, put the Quraysh first, and enter no child, madman, woman or weak man unfit for war; he pays once a year and may pay monthly, and gives the dead man's wife and young children enough. Those the imam supports are three groups: the needy; those who uphold the pillars of religion, such as judges, rulers and muftis, who must be relieved so that they can devote themselves to it; and those given a share of the treasury for their standing, such as the Banu Hashim and Banu al-Muttalib.

• Ru'af (nosebleed): whether it breaks ablution, how a bleeding worshipper continues or rebuilds his prayer, and its effect on fasting

  Ru'af is bleeding from the nose; it bears on ablution, prayer and fasting. The Malikis, Shafi'is and most Companions hold that it does not break ablution; the Hanbalis hold that only a heavy flow breaks it; the Hanafis hold that any flow from its place breaks it. A worshipper who bleeds in prayer may, for the Hanafis and Malikis, wash the blood and go back to finish the prayer; the Malikis set conditions: the cloth must not be soiled beyond a dirham, the qibla must not be turned away without excuse, and he must not speak. An imam who bleeds appoints a successor. For the Hanafis and Malikis, blood that reaches the throat of a fasting person breaks the fast.

• Ra'y (grazing): the freedom of pasture, the Haram's grass, the herdsman's liability and wage, and taking the milk of another's flock

  Ra'y (grazing) is free by default, as the Prophet said that the Muslims share three things: pasture, water and fire; he abolished the grazing preserves of the pre-Islamic period. The majority hold that a village may not exclude others from its pasture; the Malikis allow an inhabited town its own reserve. The jurists differ on grazing in the Haram: the Malikis, Shafi'is and Abu Yusuf allow it, while Abu Hanifa and Muhammad forbid it. A ruler may take no fee for grazing in a protected preserve, because only God and His Messenger may protect land. A hired herdsman is trusted and is liable only for negligence or misconduct. Most jurists forbid taking the milk of another's flock without leave, while the Hanbalis allow it after asking.

• Rubu' (houses and walled dwellings): their sale and rent in Mecca, pre-emption, division and endowment

  Rubu' is the plural of rab', a house or dwelling; the jurists also use it for a building and a walled palm garden. The Hanafis and Hanbalis forbid the sale and rent of houses in Mecca, while the Shafi'is allow them; the Malikis hold four views. Pre-emption in houses is due before division by agreement. In division, most jurists have buildings and trees follow the land, while the Malikis have each follow the other in sale. Real property, including land, houses, shops and orchards, may be endowed by agreement.

• Ruju' (return or retraction): in judgment and fatwa, in contracts, in testimony and confession, in apostasy and in the rules of travel

  Ruju' in the lexicon is turning back; in the law it is a return to what was, or the undoing of an act. It may be obligatory, as a return to the Qur'an and the Sunna when people dispute; recommended, as the mutual cancellation of a sale; permitted in revocable contracts; forbidden, as taking back a charity; or disliked, as taking back a gift in the Hanafi view. A judge or mufti may change his ruling when his ijtihad changes; a few Malikis disagreed, but most held that the earlier judgment is not annulled by a later ijtihad. Revocable contracts, such as loan of use, bequest, partnership, agency and deposit, may be revoked; binding contracts may be revoked only by mutual consent. A return is lost by remission, by the death of a party, or by the waiver of a right. In testimony, witnesses who retract after judgment pay the money, and the penalty is not carried out; in confession, a retraction removes the hadd penalty by the majority.

• Ruqba (a 'life-estate' in which each party watches for the other's death): its meaning, its relation to the umra and the gift, and the schools' views

  Ruqba in the lexicon comes from watching; one says: I grant you this house as a ruqba: if I die first it returns to me, and if you die first it is yours and your heirs'. For the Malikis each says to the other: if I die first your house is mine, and if you die first mine is yours. It is close to the 'umra, to gift, to loan and to the milk-ewe. It was known in the pre-Islamic period. The Shafi'is, Hanbalis and Abu Yusuf hold it valid, and the condition of return void. Abu Hanifa and Muhammad hold it void, as the making of ownership hangs on a doubtful event; the Malikis treat it as a loan.

• Rushd (sound judgment as the end of a ward's incapacity): its meaning, the test of a child, and the release of property

  Rushd in the lexicon is sound judgment and right conduct; in the jurists' usage it is the soundness of property for the majority, and of both property and religion for al-Shafi'i. It is the last stage of capacity: a person who comes of age sound has full capacity, his guardianship ends and his property is handed to him. If he comes of age unsound, the majority hold the restriction continues until his soundness is shown, while Abu Hanifa hands over the property at twenty-five years. A child is tested by letting him conduct the kind of transactions his peers conduct, once or more, and the schools differ on the method and the time, the Hanafis, Shafi'is and Hanbalis mostly before puberty. The rules of soundness appear in many chapters of law, such as sale, partnership, agency, gift, endowment, marriage, khul' and custody.

• Saving and investment

• Partnership (sharika)

• Siyasa shar'iyya (governance by the public interest)

• Sources of livelihood

• Economic functions of the state

• Suftaja (bill of exchange)

• Maximisation of benefit in redistribution

• Ta'ati (exchange by deed without offer and acceptance)

  Ta'ati is the buyer taking the goods and giving the price, or the seller handing the goods and the other giving the price, without speech or gesture. The Hanafis, Malikis and Hanbalis allow it, while the Shafii school requires the formula. The permitters argue that God allowed sale without fixing its form, so custom decides, and that the Companions' many sales show no offer and acceptance; they allow revocation and hire by exchange as well.

• Taslim (delivery, handing over, and the greeting of peace)

  In the lexicon taslim means delivery, handing over and enabling; for jurists it names the greeting of peace, the closing of the prayer, the enabling of possession in contracts, and the delivery of pledges, sureties, wages and dowries. The initiating greeting is a strongly recommended practice, and its reply is obligatory for one person and a communal duty for a group. The first closing salutation is required in prayer for the Malikis, Shafi'is and Hanbalis, while the Hanafis hold it obligatory. In sale, possession comes by enabling: real property is taken by enabling, movables by custom. The payment of capital in a salam must be made at the session of the contract. In a pledge, the debt is paid first, then the pledged item is handed over.

• Tatfif (short measure or weight in trade)

  Tatfif is the short-changing in measure and weight, a loss by which the seller betrays, and it is the opposite of full measure. It is forbidden, a form of treachery and of eating wealth falsely, and God pronounced woe upon the short-changers and ordered full measure. Ibn Hajar reports that the scholars count it among the major sins. The market inspector must prevent it, punish and expose those who are caught, and disputes that lead to denial are for the judges.

• Securitisation

• Compulsory levy on wealth (tawzif)

• Taxation in Islam

  Al-Maraghi defines a tax as a monetary duty owed to the state by a member of society, used when other revenues fall short (p. 52). He holds Islam does not forbid it in need, citing Umar's appeal to the governors in a famine and al-Ghazali's view that the ruler may levy the rich for the army's upkeep (pp. 52-53). He lists differences from zakat: fixed versus variable, nisab, fixed recipients versus open spending (pp. 53-54). The 1965 conference resolution says taxes do not replace zakat (p. 54).

• Tayyib (purity and lawfulness)

  The attribute of deeds, wealth, words and beliefs that God accepts — tayyib, the pure — as opposed to khabith, the foul; in his commentary on Abu Hurayra's hadith 'God is pure and accepts only what is pure' Ibn Rajab explains tayyib as the pure, God being exalted above all defect, and transmits two readings of 'He accepts only what is pure': a specific reading confining it to alms — only lawfully gained charity being accepted, as in the hadith 'no one gives charity of pure earnings but God accepts only the pure' — and a broader reading making purity a condition of deeds through freedom from corrupting motives such as showing off and conceit, and of wealth through lawfulness, since deeds, words and beliefs are all described as pure or foul; hence the Quran's contrast between the good word like a good tree and the foul word like a foul tree, and the Prophet's description as one who permits the pure things and forbids the foul.

• The Companions' fortunes under Uthman

  al-Mas'udi's famous wealth-register: Uthman's own millions and estates, al-Zubayr's multi-city houses and thousand horses, Talha's daily thousand-dinar yield and the Kunnasa palace, Ibn 'Awf's 100 horses and 10,000 sheep, Sa'd's 'Aqiq castle, Zayd's axe-split gold, Ya'la's half-million — set against Umar's sixteen-dinar hajj and 'we were extravagant'.

• Theories of interest and their critique

• Time as an economic resource

• Trade in Islam

  Al-Maraghi treats trade as among the widest fields of human activity, tied to farming and craft (p. 30). After Ibn Khaldun he notes its dangers of haggling, cheating and false oaths, which Islam met with exhortation and warning (p. 30). Honest measure, disclosure of defects, and generosity in buying and selling are required (pp. 31, 33). He cites the hadith 'I am the third of two partners as long as neither betrays the other' and the forms of partnership, including mudaraba (p. 32). A saying about nine-tenths of livelihood being in trade is recorded but, by the book's own footnote, is mursal (p. 30).

• Transylvanian rugs

  Anatolian Ushak rugs that reached Transylvanian Protestant churches, a document of trade between the two worlds.

• Values of the Islamic economy

• Wage and rizq in Islam

• Joining the Red Sea to the Mediterranean

  The ancient canal-joining dossier: a Roman king's failed cut between Qulzum and the Mediterranean at the Crocodile's Tail bridge, the silted al-Zabr canal that once let boats relay goods between the seas, Harun al-Rashid's two attempts — abandoned when Yahya ibn Khalid warned that Roman squadrons would then land near Jeddah and snatch pilgrims from the Haram — and Umar's veto on Amr ibn al-As for the same reason.

• Wazni (weighed goods)

  The lexical sense of wazni is what is measured by the balance, and kayli is what is measured by volume; both are fungible goods. Whether a good counts as weighed is disputed: most jurists (Malikis, Shafi'is, Hanbalis and Hanafis other than Abu Yusuf) hold that what was weighed in the Prophet's time stays so, on the report that the weight is the weight of the people of Mecca and the measure that of Medina; Abu Yusuf holds that custom is decisive in every case. A good not fixed in the Prophet's time, or whose status is unknown, is judged by local custom at the place of sale, since neither the law nor the lexicon sets a standard for it; the Shafi'is have further views (measure by volume because most texts concern volumes, by weight because it is more exact, or by the standard of its origin). The weighed good named in the texts is gold and silver, and like them are earthly metals such as iron, copper, lead, glass and mercury, and silk, cotton, flax and wool with their yarn. Usury on weighed goods follows the disagreement about its ground in the named goods.

• Wealth in Islam

  Al-Bahi holds that wealth is necessary to human life and that the drive to acquire it is innate, so banning private ownership is unnatural (p. 27). Wealth also carries temptation, so the believer guards the means of getting and growing it (p. 28). God is the true owner and the human a steward (pp. 69-70); spending for God's cause means the public interest (pp. 37-38). Zakat, public spending, inheritance division and the prohibition of riba are, in his account, the means that stop wealth piling up (p. 138). This is the author's own reading, presented as his view.

• Sakk (the written instrument of a deal or claim: the duty to write it, the fee for writing, a judge relying on his own hand, testimony on a document, and documents accepted by custom)

  A sakk is the written instrument in which dealings, acknowledgements and the facts of a claim are recorded. It differs from the register (sijill), which holds a judge's ruling, and from the minutes (mahdar), which record what passed between the two parties. The Shafi'is hold that writing instruments is a communal duty in every financial and other transaction. For the Shafi'is the judge is not personally bound to write them; the Hanbalis bind him when a party with an interest asks and supplies the paper. Most jurists allow a fee for writing, and the fee for the paper comes from the treasury when there is one. A judge may not rely on the bare hand of a document unless he recalls the facts, but Abu Yusuf, Muhammad and one view of Ahmad allow it when it is sealed and kept in his keeping. The Hanafis except instruments that custom accepts on their writing alone, such as official orders, the books of traders and money-changers, and old endowment deeds.

• Zakat (alms tax)

  Jurists define zakat as the transfer of a prescribed portion of a prescribed property to a prescribed recipient, the third pillar (pp. 43, 45). The book lists nisab for camels (5), cattle (30) and sheep (40), gold (20 mithqal) and silver (200 dirhams) at a quarter-tenth, land at a tenth or half-tenth by irrigation, and one-fifth on minerals and treasure (pp. 46-47). Banknotes and shares are zakatable (p. 46). The eight recipient categories are listed (pp. 48-49); the book says the muallafa lapsed after the Prophet but cites al-Shawkani for their continuance (p. 49). The author offers his own reading of the rate (p. 50). The 1965 Academy conference resolutions are reported on p. 54, with a date the book prints in conflicting forms.

Group

• The Akhi associations of Anatolia (akhism)

  The Akhi associations were young men's guilds in Anatolia in the 13th and 14th centuries, which took the ideals of futuwwa and recruited mainly craftsmen; each was led by an 'akhi'. Their information fades in the 15th century, but their tradition survives in the Turkish guilds.

• Quraysh

  The tribe that held Mecca and the custodianship of the Kaaba — the Prophet's own people, its elite his fiercest opponents for a decade, then, after 630, the core of the new community's leadership.

Place

• Chandni Chowk

  Old Delhi's market designed by Shah Jahan and Jahan Ara (1650) — the Mughal trading centre beside the Jama Masjid.

• Dhu al-Majaz

  One of the famous Arab fairs held in the sacred months along with Ukaz and Majanna, in al-Raheeq al-Makhtum's account of the pre-Islamic economy.

• Majanna

  One of the famous Arab fairs held in the sacred months along with Ukaz and Dhu al-Majaz, in al-Raheeq al-Makhtum's account of the pre-Islamic economy.

What is missing? Tell us · A theme is open when it has a reviewed guide, 10 questions, 25 entries across 5 classes, and voices from several traditions and regions.

Controversial topics

• Sexuality and gender diversity
• Converts and those who leave
• Images and figural art
• Takfir and its critics
• Dissent, heresy and freethought
• Conquest and its debates
• Violent extremism and the Muslim response
• Islam and atheism or secular thought