Research across North American Muslim communities and the broader Muslim world reveals a complex mix of religious concerns, institutional distrust, and viral misinformation driving resistance to immunization and points to where credible Islamic institutions can make a difference.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic has largely faded from daily headlines, one of its most enduring legacies has been a deep erosion of public trust in vaccines and health institutions — a challenge that, for Muslim communities, carries the additional dimension of halal compliance and religious permissibility. When a prominent Muslim cleric declares the COVID-19 vaccine haram, the video spreads faster than any public health message can counter it.

In North America, hesitancy is shaped by post-9/11 distrust, historical grievances, and the same information ecosystems that have fueled anti-vaccination sentiment across the broader population. Questions of halal compliance add another layer, one that demands clear, authoritative guidance from credible Islamic institutions.

Answering the halal question
The most distinctly Muslim dimension of vaccine hesitancy is the question of halal status. Several widely distributed vaccines use, or are alleged to use, pork-derived ingredients during production, a substance prohibited under Islamic law. Aishah Holley-Clark, a Muslim woman in the United States, cited halal concerns among her reasons for declining vaccination. "There are questions as to whether it is halal or not because almost all vaccines are pork gelatin-based," she said in "What's Behind the COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy Among Muslim Americans."
 
The concern is not specific to North America and has roots that go beyond the pandemic. In India, clerics declared certain COVID vaccines impermissible, while scholars across Asia issued rulings against the Chinese-manufactured vaccine, according to reporting by the Associated Press and an article published by The Hastings Center, a bioethics research institute.
 
Malaysia offers the starkest illustration of where unresolved halal uncertainty leads: the halal status of vaccines has been identified as the single biggest obstacle to vaccination among Muslim parents there. That uncertainty ultimately forced the government to make childhood vaccination compulsory, with fines and jail time for non-compliance.

The mainstream scholarly position, as Dr. Harunor Rashid of the University of Sydney noted in the same article, is that the principle of darura — necessity — renders vaccines permissible when the alternative is greater harm. But when dissenting voices are amplified on social media and unified institutional guidance is absent, that consensus struggles to reach the people who need it most.
 
This is precisely where organizations such as IFANCA play a uniquely valuable role. By combining halal certification expertise with scientific evaluation of pharmaceutical ingredients, IFANCA helps answer questions that neither healthcare providers nor religious leaders can address independently — transforming uncertainty into informed decision-making.
 
Institutional distrust: A specifically American shape
Beyond theological concerns lies a harder problem: institutional distrust with a specific historical texture that sets the North American Muslim community apart from the broader population.
 
Daniel Haqiqatjou, a thought leader in Islamic discourse in the United States and founder of the Aslana Institute, framed Muslim hesitancy in explicitly post-9/11 terms in the same article.

“Muslims have little trust in anything driven by government, corporate, or media interests,” he said. “Since 9/11, these ‘experts’ have come together to push a ‘global war on terror’ based on fear created by the false demonization of Islam and Muslims. Experts can be very wrong, and countless people suffer. We’ve witnessed that firsthand.”
 

African American Muslims add a further layer of historical grievance, rooted in episodes like the Tuskegee experiment, the decades-long government study in which Black American men were deliberately denied treatment for syphilis.

A specific suspicion of pharmaceutical companies runs alongside it. Research shows that the belief that the vaccine rollout was primarily “a ploy by pharmaceutical companies to make money” featured prominently among hesitant respondents. That concern became self-reinforcing as manufacturers were granted legal immunity from liability, a protection flagged repeatedly in online anti-vaccination communities.

The misinformation ecosystem
Social media accelerated the spread of misinformation into Muslim communities. On YouTube, an Australian creator branded imams who endorsed vaccination as complicit with dictatorship in a video titled "A Message to Aussie Muslims: Stand Up, Follow the Way of the Prophets." At the same time, posts on Reddit's r/PublicFreakout falsely tied the vaccine to toxic ingredients including formaldehyde and heavy metals.
 
Perhaps the most damaging claim to circulate was that the vaccine causes female sterilization by attacking the placental protein syncytin-1. It originated in an article in Health & Money News, published under a falsely attributed “Head of Pfizer Research” headline, before spreading globally. It gained particular traction in Muslim communities because of Islam’s emphasis on family and reproduction.
 
Most of this misinformation didn't originate within Muslim communities. It came from the broader anti-vaccine ecosystem. That reframes the problem as appropriation of religious language to launder existing misinformation, meaning the fix isn't theological debate but proactive science communication and trusted community partnerships.

What Muslim-majority countries show us
Vaccine hesitancy in Muslim-majority countries shares many of the same drivers, though local conditions shape the mix.

In Pakistan, a survey conducted by Gallup Pakistan and the Pakistan Islamic Medical Association (PIMA) found that 30% of respondents were unwilling to be vaccinated. Among those who were hesitant, 54% cited safety concerns. Notably, the same survey found this reluctance cut evenly across education and income levels: 67% of those with higher education said they would vaccinate, barely higher than the 63% of those with lower education levels who said the same.
 

"Religious concerns seem to be a minor factor," concluded the researchers behind the Gallup Pakistan and PIMA survey, but the conspiracy theories filling that space were no less corrosive.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the picture is different again. When European governments paused the AstraZeneca vaccine over concerns about rare blood clots, that news spread instantly to Malawi and South Sudan, where AstraZeneca was the primary vaccine available.

"You know it's a global village," Zaindi, a CARE aid worker in Malawi, told NPR. "When information is generated in Europe, it takes seconds to reach Africa. And that discouraged many of our young people." He reported that only 40% of his own CARE staff had been vaccinated, so deep was the distrust.
 
 

The role of IFANCA in strengthening vaccine confidence
According to the same Gallup Pakistan and PIMA survey, just 5% of hesitant respondents said a political leader's public vaccination would change their mind. Religious leaders fared only marginally better, at 9%, and only where religious authority is coherent and trusted.
 
What works is more granular: trusted community voices, peer communication, and institutions that have built credibility on Islamic grounds over years rather than emerging only in a public health crisis. Accumulated trust is what makes a community willing to hear a difficult message.
 
For Muslim communities, organizations such as IFANCA represent an important part of that trusted ecosystem.  What makes IFANCA’s position uniquely authoritative is the combination of scientific and religious expertise it brings to these questions. IFANCA has a strong system of information analysis by scientists trained in food science and related disciplines — and nearly half of its technical staff hold membership in the Institute of Food Technologists. The organisation is also involved in the certification of pharmaceuticals, including vaccines, not merely reviewing and analysing them but helping to develop processes and products that are inclusive of halal compliance from both scientific and religious perspectives.
 
IFANCA supports the Islamic principle of darura — necessity — when assessing the halal suitability of vaccines, consistent with the scholarly consensus referenced in this article. Final decisions are guided by IFANCA’s panel of esteemed Islamic scholars, which includes Imam M. Radwan Mardini, Imam Mahmoud Harmoush, Professor Inam Haq, Hafiz Ikhlas Ansari, and Sheikh Hamza Yusuf — ensuring that safety, religious principles, and the realities of medical science are all taken into account when making these life-saving determinations.
 
 
 

The importance of embedded finance cannot be overstated. It not only broadens the market by making Islamic finance more relevant, but also enables banks to serve geographically dispersed customers more efficiently.

We speak with Mike Breen, chief commercial officer, audax, on how embedded finance can open new customer segments for Islamic banks, and the verticals where he views the next big opportunity for embedded offerings.

Islamic finance assets are estimated to hit $9.7 trillion by 2029, yet you've pointed to a growing "distribution gap." Can you unpack what's driving it?

Breen: Customers are increasingly moving between digital platforms and ecosystems for different parts of their everyday lives, and they expect financial services to fit naturally into those journeys. Yet banking products are still largely distributed as a separate, bank-owned experience that customers have to seek out.

For banks, that represents an untapped growth opportunity. As Islamic finance grows, the opportunity is not only to expand the products available, but to broaden how customers access them. This is why we believe the next phase of digitalisation needs to not only focus on building better digital banking capabilities, but also on extending those capabilities through new distribution models that reach a wider range of customers.

AmanahPro embeds a Shariah-compliant Hajj savings account directly into MuslimPro rather than a standalone banking app. Why is that distribution model more effective?
Breen: Meeting customers within a platform they already use gives banks access to an established audience and an existing customer relationship, rather than asking them to start anew. It also allows financial products to be introduced at a point where they are relevant to what the customer is trying to do.

AmanahPro demonstrates this in practice. Saving for Hajj is not simply a standalone financial transaction; it involves putting money aside through multiple transactions over time. This makes it an ongoing financial need that can form part of a customer’s preparations for Hajj. This complements, rather than replaces, bank-owned channels. 

While AmanahPro is focused on the Indonesian market, this model is directly relevant to banks in the Middle East and other mature Islamic finance markets and can be applied to regional ecosystems across the GCC and beyond, with local banks and partners. 

How do you see embedded finance opening up new customer segments for Islamic banks — particularly younger, digitally native consumers?
Breen: Younger customers may not necessarily begin by looking for an Islamic banking relationship, but they will encounter needs around saving, payments, travel, education, financing or investing. 

Embedded finance allows banks to introduce a Shariah-compliant solution around that specific need, rather than asking the customer to buy into a broader banking proposition upfront. That also gives Islamic banks a different way to build relevance with a generation whose financial relationships may be more fragmented. A customer may use different platforms for payments, investing, commerce or travel rather than relying on one bank for everything. 

Islamic finance has traditionally centered on the Middle East and Southeast Asia. What needs to happen — technologically and structurally — for it to scale into newer markets?
Breen: Islamic finance is now present across 98 countries, with 84 non-OIC countries either expressing interest in or already active in the industry as of 2024. Its appeal is also broadening beyond Muslim consumers, yet the industry remains highly concentrated, with Iran, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia accounting for 72% of global Islamic finance assets. 

Technologically, banks need infrastructure that makes expansion portable rather than bespoke. New products, customer journeys and partnerships should be able to sit on top of existing core systems, allowing banks to enter or test a new market without rebuilding the underlying stack each time. 

Structurally, that portability has to be matched by the ability to localize. Regulatory requirements and Shariah governance can vary significantly by market, so controls, oversight and security need to be designed in from the outset rather than added later. This gives banks the flexibility to adapt propositions to local requirements and work with new ecosystem partners.

You've spoken about "trust by design." How can banks and ecosystem partners collaborate on embedded offerings without compromising Shariah governance or transparency?
Breen: The global embedded finance market was valued at $145.03 billion in 2025. As more financial services are delivered through third-party ecosystems at this scale, the cost of getting governance wrong becomes much greater — not only in terms of regulatory and operational risk, but also the potential erosion of customer trust. 

For Islamic finance, where Shariah compliance is fundamental to the integrity of the product, embedded finance should change how and where that product is delivered, but not the standards of governance and transparency behind it.

Modern banking infrastructure is what allows these responsibilities and controls to be maintained across the ecosystem. Banks can build an engagement and orchestration layer on top of their existing systems to securely extend banking capabilities into partner ecosystems without replacing the underlying core. 

Within this layer, customer journeys, workflows and integrations can be managed alongside embedded security and regulatory controls, including governed access to data and banking capabilities, secure third-party integrations, and monitoring and auditability. 

Where does audax see the next big opportunity for embedded Islamic finance?
Breen: For audax, the next opportunity lies at the convergence of new verticals, new markets, and the right ecosystem partners. Global Islamic fintech transaction volumes are projected to reach $341 billion by 2029 - In our view, driving that growth will require both expanding access in emerging markets and modernising how Islamic financial services are delivered in more established ones. 

In Southeast Asia, through our partnership with Maybank Islamic, our focus is on enabling modern, customer-centric Islamic banking capabilities across the bank’s priority markets, including Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, as well as emerging markets such as the Philippines. 

These markets are at different stages of Islamic finance development. Malaysia and Indonesia have well-established Islamic finance sectors, while the Philippines presents a different opportunity centred on expanding access. 

Beyond Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and the UAE in particular, is also a core market for audax. Through our existing partnership with Tuum, we are broadening our modernisation proposition for financial institutions across the region.

The next phase is about bringing the elements together: modernising the underlying banking capabilities, extending them into relevant ecosystems and deploying them across priority markets where there is meaningful demand. 

As international humanitarian aid falls dangerously short, Muslim diaspora networks are stepping in to sustain food, healthcare, and community support across Sudan     

The sheer scale of Sudan’s humanitarian crisis defies comprehension. 

According to the World Health Organization, 33.7 million people require urgent assistance, 21.2 million face acute food insecurity, and 11.5 million have been forcibly displaced.

But the reality behind these numbers is starker: Parents skipping meals to feed their children, families trekking for days to find refuge, and neighbors keeping community kitchens alive while artillery fire echoes through their neighborhoods.

“It’s families who are simply trying to get a meal for today and can’t even think about what they’ll have to eat tomorrow,” says Michael Selby-Green, international media coordinator at Islamic Relief, a UK-headquartered non-profit organisation. 

Testimonies reveal harrowing details - some have told Islamic Relief they are surviving on leaves and animal feed for lack of everything else. 
     
When civil war erupted in April 2023, the mechanisms of state-led relief crumbled almost overnight. Compounding this failure is a glaring shortfall in global support. The UN’s humanitarian response for Sudan barely met 40% of its funding targets in 2025, stripping traditional aid safeguards from the world’s largest displacement and hunger crisis.

Now, three years into the conflict, Islamic social finance tools such as Zakat, Sadaqah, as well as Muslim diaspora networks are helping fill some of the gaps left by faltering international support.

Geography of hunger and siege

The crisis looks dramatically different depending on where people reside     .

In parts of Darfur and North and West Kordofan, the risk of famine remains acute. Elsewhere, fighting has eased enough for some displaced civilians to return home. But returning home does not necessarily mean returning to normal life.

“Return reads as a positive indicator in most datasets. On the ground it’s a new caseload,” says Khan.

In Darfur, people are confronting siege-like conditions.

When Penny Appeal Canada operated a central kitchen in Abu-Shouk Camp in El-Fasher, North Darfur last October, the local market had effectively stopped functioning.

“We could not run normal competitive procurement, so funds went directly to the kitchen supervisor to buy whatever was physically available that day,” says Khan.

Volunteers cooked and delivered meals with persistent shelling. Shortly after the project closed, Penny Appeal Canada lost contact with many of the camp committees. 

Some displaced families later reached the Northern State. At Al-Afad Camp in Al-Dabbah, the organisation provided daily iftar to 600 households in early 2026.

“One man there had walked four days to reach it,” says Khan.

When food becomes privilege      

Sudan’s hunger crisis is not just about whether food is physically available.

In some areas, markets continue to operate, but inflation, currency depreciation and disrupted supply chains have pushed prices beyond the reach of ordinary households.

“Even where food is available in markets, the lack of physical cash means people can’t always buy it, and prices have become unaffordable to most people because of massive inflation and supply shortages,” says Selby-Green.

This is one reason Muslim Hands, an international NGO in over 52 countries, has increasingly prioritised emergency food assistance, hot meals, and cash-based support alongside its longer-established seasonal food programmes. 

Penny Appeal Canada describes the situation as “price volatility rather than absolute scarcity”.

“Food exists. Households cannot afford it and agencies cannot budget against it,” Firaz Khan, the organisation’s programs communications specialist tells Salaam Gateway.

The power of Islamic charitable giving

Sudan’s community kitchens, known as Takaaya, have become a vital grassroots response to hunger. 

Islamic Relief works with some of these kitchens and has called for greater international support. Hundreds have faced closure over the past year, according to the organisation, with many relying heavily on donations from Sudanese communities abroad.

“Zakat and other similar types of donations are crucial for Islamic Relief’s response in Sudan and have become even more so since governments around the world cut aid over the last few years,” says Selby-Green.

Zakat is an obligatory annual charity for every qualifying adult Muslim whose wealth exceeds a specific threshold. Sadaqah, meanwhile, is a voluntary act of giving done out of compassion, with no fixed amount or timeline.

At the Zakat Foundation of America (ZFA), funding comes primarily from individual community donors through Zakat and Sadaqah. 

“In Sudan, these contributions translate into food, healthcare, shelter, essential household supplies and assistance for vulnerable children and families,” a ZFA spokesperson tells Salaam Gateway. 

The foundation says it has worked in Sudan since 2007 and that its emergency response since April 2023 has reached nearly 167,000 people.

For Penny Appeal Canada, faith-based giving accounts for most of its Sudan portfolio. “It’s not one stream among several. For Sudan it’s close to the whole thing,” says Khan.

Zakat, Zakat al-Fitr, Qurbani and Sadaqah from Canadian Muslim donors fund the organisation’s work. During Ramadan 2026, Zakat al-Fitr reached 2,000 families in the Khartoum State, while Qurbani, a ritual sacrifice of livestock during Eid Al Adha, provided fresh meat to communities where protein was otherwise unaffordable.

The challenge of seasonality and security 

For all the charitable tools available, emergency food support can not rely solely or indefinitely on Islamic philanthropy, due to the seasonality of donations and the longevity of assistance required.           

Sudan was historically a major agricultural producer, but the destruction of farms, displacement of farmers, looting of machinery, and collapse of markets have damaged the foundations of food security.

Islamic Relief is therefore combining urgent relief with livelihood programmes to reduce dependence on emergency aid as families regain the ability to produce food and earn an income.

“Emergency relief saves lives, but it isn’t a long-term solution,” says Selby-Green. “Farmers need seeds, tools, fertiliser, cash, and support to rehabilitate irrigation systems, including solar systems.”

The seasonality of Islamic charitable donations compounds the issue. “The trade-off is timing,” says Khan. “Zakat and Qurbani concentrate liquidity into Ramadan and Dhul Hijjah. Emergencies do not.”

For Sudan, the challenge is turning Muslim generosity into a reliable, year-round lifeline. More so, this generosity needs to be channelled through accountable structures. 

Penny Appeal Canada operates entirely through Sudanese partners, who undergo due diligence before funds are transferred, while beneficiary lists are verified in the field. Because displaced families are constantly on the move, these lists must remain “live.”

Similarly, Muslim Hands has relied on community-based organisations to extend its reach. Since April 2023, its programs have reached nearly 350,000 people, delivering food, clean water, education, and emergency response.

“Local organisations provide much more than logistical support,” Faisal Safdar, manager of global operations development at Muslim Hands tells Salaam Gateway.

A prime example is the NGO’s work with the Alryada Voluntary Organization, whose insight enabled targeted assistance for displaced families in Atbara, Aldamer, and Shandi, cities located in the River Nile State of Sudan. 

“This has helped us reach highly vulnerable demographics, including female-headed households, people with disabilities, and individuals living with chronic illnesses,” Safdar notes.

The Gaza conflict that erupted in October 2023 and caused irreparable human devastation has since become one of the world’s more dire humanitarian crisis. Loss of lives and livelihoods, economic degradation, infrastructural destruction, and the enduring consequences of displacement and dispossession have compounded already challenging socioeconomic conditions.

For all the defiance and struggle of its residents, Gaza continues to function as a barren wasteland, war-torn, isolated and in need of acute and protracted rehabilitation. 

Below are a few vital observations on the deepening crisis that has submerged the besieged enclave, threatening to alter its fate and future, perhaps forever. 

Human devastation has spread beyond the battlefield 
In the three years since the attack on October 7, the conflict has morphed into a catastrophic crisis that has resulted in close to 74,000 fatalities and has left nearly 175,000 injured, according to TechforPalestine. Countless lie buried, unclaimed and missing under the rubble. 

The war did not discriminate between civilian lives, professionals and military personnel, with frontliners such as medical staff and media workers facing the brunt. Nearly 262 press personnel and 1,701 medical professionals have been killed during the three-year war. 

Israel was responsible for two-thirds of all journalist and media worker killings in 2025, driving the total number killed worldwide last year to 129, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. More than 60% of the 86 members of the press killed by Israeli fire last year were Palestinians reporting from Gaza. 

According to UN estimates, human development in Gaza has been pushed back by 77 years, caused by the scale and extent of deprivation across living conditions, livelihoods/income, food security, gender equality, and social inclusion.

The economic costs are stratospheric and staggered across sectors  
The Gaza Strip has suffered widespread damage across several sectors, resulting in crippling financial needs for rehabilitation and recovery. The conflict resulted in economic losses of $22.7 billion, including loss estimates projected for up to three years in the future, according to the Gaza Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment (RDNA) report by the World Bank, the European Union, and the United Nations. 

The report identified healthcare as the sector accumulating the highest estimated loss of $6.8 billion, followed by employment with $2.8 billion, commerce and industry with $2.5 billion, education ($2.4 billion) and social protection ($1.6 billion). 

Education is a lost-generation issue
A staggering 745,000 students in the Gaza enclave have been deprived of formal schooling since the outbreak of the conflict, while 88,000 higher education pupils have been forced to put their academic degrees on indefinite hold, according to UN agency UNESCO. 

Meanwhile, over 95% of school buildings require rehabilitation or reconstruction with 79% of higher education campuses and 60% of vocational training centres damaged or destroyed, according to UNESCO-UNOSAT satellite damage assessments. 

But beyond the shattered infrastructure, tipped-over desks, dangling wood beams and splintered glass, another crisis has unfolded: a catastrophic shortage of digital equipment.

“Gaza is facing an extreme, system-wide shortage of digital devices,” Maha Alfarra, managing director at the Galilee Foundation, a UK-registered charity focused on Palestinian education and humanitarian initiatives, told Salaam Gateway in July 2026.

An acute shortage of educational materials and the destruction of infrastructure have placed an entire generation’s education under severe strain.

“In the immediate aftermath of the genocide, the people of Gaza already found themselves suffering from a shortage of electronic supplies. Second-hand tablets, phones, and laptops were being sold at insane rates. 10x what you’d expect,” Kathrine Nicolaisen, founder and CEO of Olives & Heather, told Salaam Gateway.  

Literacy stood at almost 98% across Gaza in 2023, up from 94.3% in 2007, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. No data has been recorded for the past two years. 

The Gaza conflict and the subsequent device shortage have affected children from day one, adds Nicolaisen.

“One of my employees launched an online school where she managed to mobilise displaced Gazan teachers and had them deliver government-approved curriculum across all age groups. Within a few months the school had over 500 students, and their main obstacle turned out to be access to devices. Parents would reach out to her and ask if classes could be shifted, because they had multiple kids sharing one device.” 

Healthcare infrastructure is in ruins and could take years to rebuild 
Four of the largest hospitals in Gaza - Al-Shifa Hospital, Nasser Hospital, Al-Quds Hospital, and the Indonesian Hospital - have suffered severe destruction and widespread damage, leaving them largely or completely out of service.  

The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported 971 attacks on healthcare in Gaza from the start of the conflict up until June 2026, affecting 804 health facilities, including hospitals and clinics and 268 ambulances.

Only 19 of the Gaza Strip′s hospitals and 73 of its 158 health centres are partially operational, according to a UNWRA report. Meanwhile, around 2,200 inpatient beds and just 107 ICU beds remain available across Gaza health services to serve its over two million population.

Furthermore, in excess of 172,400 conflict-related injuries have been reported, of which around 25% have resulted in life-altering disabilities requiring urgent specialised treatment, rehabilitation, and long-term support.

“Widespread forced displacement, coupled with the destruction of more than 83% of the Gaza Strip’s buildings and infrastructure, has created profound challenges in ensuring healthcare services are available and accessible where they are most needed,” the UNWRA report read. 

Displacement has become an absolute constant
More than 1.9 million people have been displaced, often repeatedly, according to the Gaza assessment report, while more than 1.2 million people - around 60% of Gaza's population - have lost their homes. 

Around one million out of Gaza’s total population of 2.1 million were residing in 862 displacement centres, as of November 10, 2025. The majority of the existing schools have been repurposed as shelters for internally displaced people while damage to water, sanitation, and waste management infrastructure has put the entire population at risk of disease outbreaks.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that more than 80% of displacement sites assessed in April reported frequently visible rodents or pests, while skin infections or rashes were reported in nearly two-thirds of sites, lice in over 65%, and bedbugs in more than half. 

An open-prison environment has created unprecedented mental health challenges 
Children have faced the brunt of the war leaving an entire generation scarred, maimed or orphaned, leaving indelible psychological and emotional wounds.

A huge chunk of children is left wounded with no surviving family, while almost all children require mental health and psychosocial support, according to the RDNA report. 

Formal education for children with disabilities has been suspended, while an estimated 7,000 young people have lost limbs, with 62% of rehabilitation facilities in the Gaza Strip destroyed or rendered non-functional.

Islamic finance is an alternative financial system based on Islamic law, more commonly referred to as Shariah. 

The doctrine governs how money can be raised, invested, lent, and borrowed, with real economic activity at the heart of all dealings, alongside ethical conduct and fairness.

The key principles are:
•    Prohibition of Riba or interest: Money cannot generate a guaranteed return only because it was lent out to a party that needed it. 
•    Avoidance of excessive uncertainty: Contracts and transactions should be sufficiently clear and transparent. 
•    Prohibition of gambling: Transactions based primarily on gambling or chance are prohibited. 
•    Shariah-compliant investments: Financing and investment should avoid prohibited sectors and activities. 
•    Asset or transaction backing: Islamic financial structures are based on an underlying asset, trade or business activity.

The common Islamic finance products include Sukuk, Islamic funds, Islamic deposits, home finance and trade finance. 

•    Sukuk: Certificates representing interest or an ownership share in a tangible asset, project or an investment activity.
•    Islamic funds: Funds investing in Shariah-compliant assets
•    Islamic deposits: Deposits structured to generate returns through Shariah-compliant contracts.
•    Home finance: Financing through Shariah-compliant contracts such as diminishing Musharakah, Ijarah or Murabaha rather than interest-bearing mortgages.
 

The underlying Shariah contracts or structures on which Islamic finance products can be built are as follows: 

• Murabaha: Cost-plus sale in which the seller discloses the acquisition cost and profit margin.
• Musharakah: Partnership in which the parties contribute capital and share profits and losses.
• Mudarabah: Partnership in which one party contributes the capital while the other manages the investment.
• Ijarah: Lease in which the lessor provides the right to use an asset in return for rental payments.
• Wakalah: Agency arrangement in which one party appoints another to act on its behalf.