Is Forex Trading Halal In Islam?

Beginner Questions
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  • Is Forex trading forbidden in Islam?

  • Can Muslims trade Forex and CFDs?

While the answer is complex, the one answer we have concluded here is: Yes, Forex trading is Halal and CFD trading is halal if you have made a real business out of it. At the same time, we can tell you that Forex trading is Haram, yes Forex can be 100% haram if you are driven by greed and gambling sensation for a quick catch.

Trading Forex is Halal if you treat trading as a business where you calculate your risk of investment with proper risk/reward expectations. Do not treat trading as Gambling, do not trade with Swap accounts, and make sure that you do not violate any Islamic Religious laws. We have done our research and will do our best to help you answer that question today.

Is Investing in Forex Halal?

Let’s make it clear we’re not a religious people, neither we’re Islamic scholars. So, to find our answers to these questions We had to do proper research. Thus, We took this opportunity to learn from Islamic Scholars, get their opinion by asking them ” Is Investing in Forex trading Halal in Islam?”

The question of whether Forex trading is permissible under Islamic law is a difficult question to answer conclusively. While Islamic authorities certainly agree that Forex trading under certain conditions is halal (i.e., permissible according to Islamic law), there is some controversy as to exactly what conditions.

Sharia laws prohibit the acceptance of specific interest or fees for money lending (known as riba or usury), whether the payment is fixed or floating.

Forex trading in Islam must have an immediate effect so that it can be a natural part of trading that is permitted by Islamic law. Therefore, Muslims must conduct their forex trading based on fundamental and technical analysis.

However, all Muslim forex trading accounts must uphold Islamic laws. Usury, involving the payment of interest, should be avoided and should not be considered gambling.

When we talk about whether forex trading is halal or haram, it is very important to consider that forex trading is an activity that must be done very consciously and in the best possible way. In reference to forex in Islam, each trader must always comply with the rules that his religion raises.

Therefore, the doubt for those who wish to be forex traders and belong to the Islam religion must be resolved when we consider that the forex is either haram or halal depending on how it is done and under what entity we do it.

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I’m surprised that forex trading could be halal under any circumstances as (for private retail clients) it consists of betting on the movement of an exchange rate. It surely doesn’t qualify as an investment as there is no actual asset underlying the position - we are not engaged in buying and selling currency itself.

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Hi @KaziTanzib,
Thank you for an excellent post. I have some Islamic friends who have said in the past that participating in Forex is haram. Your post is entirely logical and has saved me a lot of time in research. My wife from Damascus was unsure when I asked her.

I look at it like this. In the global Forex market there are three types of participant. There is the business person who, when considering the risk to his business of the impact of foreign exchange, seeks to mitigate that risk by a corporate treasury function. For example, a Japanese car manufacturer must pay his employees wages in Japanese Yen, but will sell a large proportion of his output (cars) in USD about six to twelve months later. For that transaction, he would be well advised to "buy the Yen forward and sell USD so that he can know today that he has the Yen to pay his employees at today’s exchange rate instead of being exposed to the risk of a sharply increasing Yen, where his business would run at a loss.

For that transaction he needs a second party. The bank. The commercial or merchant bank will sell him the Yen forward at today’s USD (plus a small merchant margin). Having made a “gross profit” on the margin of that deal, the bank now has to evaluate its own risk of holding the dollars forward compared with the margin of profit obtained from the deal with the Japanese car manufacturer. To mitigate that risk, the bank has a dealer desk and the third party (the Forex trader) will participate in the other side of that trade with the bank. The bank only gets to be the deal maker because both the manufacturer and the trader accept the counterparty risk of the bank not being able to fulfil its obligations.

In this oversimplified example of the three parties, all types are taking business decisions either to be able to run a business in the first place, or to mitigate future income streams in one currency against the intermediate exchange rate fluctuation between paying the wages every month and receiving funds for the sold cars at a later date.

For context in this forum, then is the Forex trader gambling (Haram activity in Islam) or taking an opportunity to make (Halal profit) by taking a risk position opposite to that of the car manufacturer. After all, the manufacturer could always choose to not invoke a treasury function and accept the risk of the exchange rate fluctuation. But since over 4 trillion dollars changes hands every day on the global forex markets, it is quite obvious that the business prefers to lower its risk at an acceptable forward transaction cost that is known. The trader is offering a service to the manufacturer (indirectly via the banks or the Forex Exchange brokers) in providing liquidity to take up the other side of that risk trade.

I conclude that all three parties have conducted their affairs in a Halal manner. But what you have pointed out about being reckless, for example the greed of overleveraging a trade, as being Haram is quite justified too. In order to run a competent Forex business, you need a robust strategy and trading plan. And for most of the people on this forum, this is not their main source of income. So being reckless by overleveraging or not having a trading plan, or by exposing oneself the a potential loss that would adversely impact the ability of a family to eat, have a home and be educated is. for sure, Haram.

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This was a really interesting read and was really surprised to read your conclusion on it being Halal.

Figured overnight swaps/carry trades would make it haram, as per quoted text, but I can see how it can be halal if practiced as day trading/scalping.

Really interested see the OP’s interpretation of this point because I’m just as equally curious.

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Trading is not haram, provided that there is 1) no interest element, 2) trades are conducted “hand to hand”, and 3) the stocks, commodities, or currencies purchased do not offend against the tenets of Islam

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On 2), what is a hand to hand trade please?

On 3), I assume that gambling would be contrary to the tenets of Islam: but this is the point, is not CFD trading exactly the same as spreadbetting, and therefore should not both be forbidden?

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Good question and strangely unique to UK and Ireland where the concept of spreadbetting applies.

HMRC regards spreadbetting as a bet between punter(retail) and bookmaker(broker)

A CFD is a contract between the same 2 parties on the outcome of the difference in price from contract inception to conclusion.

The latter could be construed as ‘hand to hand’ in that it is a contract whereas the former can be construed as simple gambling (HMRC analysis thus they tax gains on cfd’s and not on spreadbetting).

Then if we introduce religion it gets even more complicated - keep it simple, Exodus says if you have loads and lend to a person who has little then no interest on the contract :slight_smile:

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What are currencies that offend the tenets of islam? :open_mouth:

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