Qabd
Qabd is possession or control of an asset. Islamic law uses it to decide when a sale is complete, when an asset may be resold, and whether a currency or gold exchange has been settled on the spot as required.
Also called: qabdh · possession · constructive possession · qabd hukmi
Jurists distinguish physical possession (qabd haqiqi) from constructive possession (qabd hukmi), where the buyer has control and bears the risk of the asset without physically holding it — through title documents, a warehouse receipt or a credit to an account. Constructive possession is accepted for most modern transactions, which is what makes commodity-based structures such as murabaha and tawarruq workable.
Qabd matters most in currency exchange. Because both legs of an exchange of money must be settled immediately to avoid riba al-nasi'ah, scholars have had to decide when an electronic transfer, a card authorisation or a standard settlement cycle counts as spot. The same question now arises with digital assets: whether control of a token in a wallet amounts to possession, and whether stablecoin exchanges settle as required.
In practice
Constructive possession still requires real control and the transfer of risk. A purchase in which the buyer never bears any risk of the asset before reselling it is where structures fail scrutiny.
Example
A customer exchanges US$10,000 for euros at a bank counter and receives the euros the same day: qabd is complete on both sides. If the bank instead promised to deliver the euros in a month at today's rate, one leg is deferred and the exchange is problematic.
See also
- Riba al-FadlRiba al-fadl is the unlawful excess in a same-kind exchange of specified commodities — originally gold, silver, wheat, barley, dates and salt — which must be traded in equal amounts and hand to hand.
- Riba al-Nasi'ahRiba al-nasi'ah is riba arising from deferment: any increase stipulated in return for time on a loan, and the deferral of delivery in an exchange of like commodities that must be settled on the spot.
- 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.
- StablecoinA stablecoin is a crypto-asset designed to hold a steady value against a reference, almost always a fiat currency such as the US dollar. How that steadiness is supported differs sharply from one issuer to the next, and so does what a holder can actually redeem.
- Crypto CustodyCrypto custody is holding someone else’s crypto-assets, or the means of access to them, in a way that lets you move them. The test is control in fact — who could move the balance without the customer’s cooperation — not how the service describes itself in its terms.