Contemporary Applications of Bayʿ Qabl al-Qabd in Islamic Banking: An Analytical Study from Juristic and Economic Perspectives

اسلامی بینکاری میں بیع قبل القبض کی معاصر تطبیقات: فقہی و معاشی تناظر میں تجزیاتی جائزہ

Abstract

The prohibition of selling goods before taking possession (bay' qabl al-qabd) is a firmly established principle of Islamic commercial law, grounded in explicit Prophetic traditions and elaborated by the four Sunni schools. Contemporary Islamic banking, however, operates through documents, electronic registries and intermediated supply chains in which physical possession by the financing institution is often impractical. This study first examines the classical doctrine — its textual foundations, the positions of the four schools, and the rationale of the prohibition — and then analyses its application to murabahah to the purchase orderer, organised tawarruq, salam and parallel salam, istisna', secondary-market trading of sukuk, and documentary import finance, evaluated against the AAOIFI Shari'ah Standards, the resolutions of the International Islamic Fiqh Academy, and the regulatory framework of the State Bank of Pakistan. The study argues that the possession requirement functions as a structural safeguard against speculation and the detachment of finance from the real economy, concludes that constructive possession (qabd hukmi) grounded in genuine transfer of ownership and risk provides a legitimate basis for most contemporary applications, and offers recommendations for strengthening Shari'ah compliance in Pakistani Islamic banking.