A paper presented to the International Islamic Fiqh Academy at its Sixth Session, held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Majallat Majmaʿ al-Fiqh al-Islāmī (Journal of the International Islamic Fiqh Academy)
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful
Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds, and prayers and peace be upon our Prophet and Intercessor, Muḥammad, who was sent as mercy to the world. Prayers and peace be also upon the Prophet’s companions and followers until the Day of Judgment:
The people of this modern era have managed to conclude many of their financial transactions and contracts by means of modern communication devices such as telephones, telegraphs, wireless communication devices, telexes, faxes, etc. It has become necessary to know how to conclude financial contracts via these communication devices in accord with the teachings of Sharīʿah. This is what we will explain here based on what our scholars have written and decided regarding the expression of a contract’s offer and acceptance (ṣīghat al-ʿaqd), the conditions related to them, and the conditions for effectively achieving uninterrupted offer and acceptance so that the two halves of the contract occur in the same session.
Since the information on these points is known in universities, I will only speak about them briefly here before explaining the Sharīʿah ruling on the subject of this research paper.
