Principles of Islamic Finance: Prohibition of Riba, Gharar and Maysir

Islamic finance, a complete rule based financial system, fundamentals of which are originated from revealed verses of the Holy Quran considered direct ordinance from the God and the practices of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) commonly known as ahadith. Although the concept of Islamic finance is as old as the religion itself but in the Middle Ages Muslims diverted from the original teachings of Islam, only recently Islamic finance has started to reemerge. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the fundamental rules that make Islamic finance different from its counterpart. In this paper an attempt has been made to discuss briefly fundamental principles of Islamic finance namely prohibition of Riba (interest), Gharar(uncertainty) and Maysir (gambling). It is found in the study that these principles are based on the fundamental sources and early Islamic jurists, scholars and contemporary researchers uphold them in carrying out financial transactions. In order to run financial system according to the Islamic principles these concepts must be understood clearly and all transactions must be free from them.