Maysir
Maysir is gambling or wagering — acquiring wealth by chance at someone else's expense rather than through trade, work or the productive use of capital. It is prohibited in the Qur'an and is a key test applied to speculative financial products.
Also called: maisir · gambling in Islam · qimar
The defining feature is a zero-sum outcome determined by an uncertain event: one party wins exactly what the other loses, and neither creates value. The related term qimar is often used for games of chance specifically.
In finance the analysis comes up with derivatives entered purely to bet on price movements, contracts for difference, some structured products, lottery-style prize schemes and some crypto products. An instrument that hedges a genuine commercial exposure is analysed differently from one with no purpose except speculation, which is why Islamic hedging tools are built around an underlying need.
In practice
Maysir does not mean every investment with an uncertain return is gambling. Buying shares in a halal business or financing a venture with shared profit and loss is investment, not maysir.
Example
Two traders agree that if a currency closes above a level on Friday, one pays the other US$10,000, and if it closes below, the payment reverses. Neither owns or needs the currency. That is a wager and falls within maysir.
Commonly confused with
| Term | How it differs |
|---|---|
| Gharar | Gharar is uncertainty in a contract's terms; maysir is gain from chance at another's expense. A clearly defined bet can be free of gharar and still be maysir. |
See also
- GhararGharar is excessive uncertainty or ambiguity in the essential terms of a contract — the subject matter, the price, the delivery — of a kind that can make one party's gain depend on the other's ignorance.
- TakafulTakaful is a cooperative risk-sharing arrangement in which participants contribute to a common fund that pays claims among them, run by an operator under a Sharia-compliant contract rather than sold as conventional insurance.
- Wa'dWa'd is a unilateral promise by one party to do something in the future, such as buy or sell an asset. Islamic finance uses binding promises in hedging and financing where a bilateral forward contract would not be permitted.