Commercial Contracts
Every clause, held to both standards.
The contracts a business signs shape it more than any mission statement, and most are signed as they arrive, boilerplate and all. We read them the way you would if you had the time and the training: against Islamic commercial principles and English contract law at once.
Two traditions, one demand
Both systems distrust vagueness
What fiqh asks of a contract
Certainty · Substance · No riba
Islamic commercial law treats a contract as a serious act: subject-matter that exists and is defined, a price that is known, obligations both sides genuinely understand. Excessive uncertainty, gharar, can undo an agreement, and any term that turns money itself into a source of guaranteed gain is riba, however it is labelled.
Fulfilling a contract, once made, is a religious duty, which is exactly why the terms deserve scrutiny before signature, not after.
What English law asks of it
Certainty · Formation · Enforceability
English contract law wants much the same discipline for its own reasons: an offer met by acceptance, consideration, terms certain enough to enforce. Courts do not rescue parties from vagueness: an “agreement to agree” usually is not a contract at all.
And it adds machinery of its own: implied terms, statutory rights, controls on penalty clauses, all operating whether or not you knew they were there.
The two systems converge on one word: certainty. A contract precise enough to satisfy fiqh is usually a better English contract for it: clearer, fairer, harder to fight about. That convergence is what we work with.
Clause by clause
Where standard terms need a second look
- Late-payment interest The clause almost every standard form contains
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English law is built around interest on overdue commercial debts: on most business-to-business supplies of goods and services, statute adds it by default even where the contract is silent. For a Muslim business this cuts both ways: clauses under which you would pay interest, and rights under which you would charge it. There are cleaner ways to protect cash flow, such as payment on delivery or in stages, deposits, retention of title and the discipline of shorter terms, and the drafting can lean on those instead.
- Penalties and late-payment charges Deterrents dressed as compensation
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Both systems are wary of punishment clauses, for different reasons: English law cuts down clauses that operate as penalties rather than protecting a legitimate interest, and fiqh scrutinises charges on a debtor’s delay that function as disguised interest. Getting this boundary right is craft, not boilerplate.
- Risk, indemnities and insurance Who carries what, and for how much
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Indemnities can quietly shift open-ended risk onto the smaller party. The questions to ask are the same in both frameworks: is the risk defined, is it priced, and does it belong with the party who can control it? Where cover is needed, how it is arranged deserves the same care as the clause itself.
- Scope and certainty Gharar by another name
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“Such other services as may be agreed”, prices “to be confirmed”, obligations that depend on one side’s discretion: vagueness a scholar would flag as gharar is usually the same vagueness a litigator will one day exploit. Precision serves both masters.
The work itself
Read, advise, put right
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Read it in full
Bring the contract, draft or signed, English or Arabic. We go through it clause by clause and tell you, in plain words, what it commits you to in both frameworks.
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Advise on the fix
Most problems have proportionate answers: a clause amended, an alternative mechanism proposed, a point conceded knowingly instead of by accident. We tell you which battles are worth having.
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Document it
Amendments, side letters or fresh drafting, written to English standards. Where regulated legal services are required, these are provided by our partner SRA-regulated law firm.
Common questions
Before you sign, or after you already have
Can interest clauses simply be removed from a standard contract?
Often, yes. Counterparties agree to more amendments than people expect, especially when a workable alternative is offered rather than a bare deletion. Where a term cannot be moved, we tell you exactly what you would be accepting, so the decision is made with open eyes rather than by default.
What about contracts we’ve already signed?
A signed contract binds you, and keeping your word is itself a principle both frameworks take seriously. But existing agreements can be reviewed, renegotiated at renewal, varied by consent, or simply understood for the first time. Knowing precisely where you stand is worth having even when nothing can change today.
Do you work with contracts in Arabic?
Yes. We work in English and Arabic, and we are used to arrangements where the relationship lives in one language and the paperwork in another. What we will not do is let a translation be the only thing anyone has read: both versions get read.
Is a contract based on Islamic principles enforceable in England?
What an English court enforces is an English contract: offer, acceptance, consideration, certain terms. A contract built on Islamic principles is simply an English contract whose terms have been chosen with more care: nothing about avoiding interest or defining risk makes it less enforceable. The skill is in drafting so the principles live in the terms themselves, not in a label the court is asked to interpret.
Related services
Book a consultation
Bring the contract to the first meeting.
An hour with the actual document tells you more than a month of wondering about it.
Or call 020 3930 1088