: What Makes A Particular Stock “Halal”?

While the idea of Islamic investing has been gaining favor with Muslims over the past few years, it is becoming increasingly difficult to come up with a generally accepted definition of a halal investment. It’s easy to avoid companies that market goods Muslims consider “impure” (Here’s a tip – shun businesses listed in this “socially irresponsible” Vice Fund), but nearly every company has some dealing with interest income, which violates the Muslim ban on usury. To get around this, some scholars calculate a company’s “impure income ratio” – if it is low enough, it qualifies. But there are other issues that haven’t been considered yet. At a session on Islamic investing at last month’s ISNA convention in Washington, a young Muslim environmentalist questioned why Exxon was on the approved list. “Good point,” one of the Islamic investment gurus said. “We need to look into that some more.”

Shahed Amanullah is editor-in-chief of altmuslim.com.