Shariah

• The Bottom Line: Shariah is an ethical investment framework based on Islamic principles that naturally emphasizes financial health, long-term stability, and risk aversion—qualities that strongly resonate with the core tenets of value investing.
• Key Takeaways:
• What it is: A set of rules that screen investments based on both their business activities (avoiding “sin stocks”) and their financial structure (primarily, avoiding excessive debt and interest).
• Why it matters: It acts as a powerful, pre-built filter for identifying financially robust companies and avoiding speculative ventures, which helps build a margin_of_safety.
• How to use it: By applying a two-step screening process—first checking what a company does, then checking its financial health—investors can build a portfolio of resilient, ethically-aligned businesses.

Imagine you're building a house. You wouldn't build it on a shaky foundation of sand, nor would you use toxic, flammable materials, no matter how cheap they were. You'd want solid ground, strong materials, and a design that's built to last through storms. In the world of investing, Shariah (pronounced “Sha-ree-ah”) is like a very old, time-tested architectural blueprint for building just such a portfolio. It's an ethical and moral code derived from Islamic teachings that provides a comprehensive framework for all aspects of life, including finance and commerce. When applied to investing, it's often called “Shariah-compliant investing” or “Islamic finance.” At its heart, this isn't about religious dogma; it's about a set of principles that promote fairness, social welfare, and real economic activity over pure speculation. Think of it less as a restriction and more as a quality filter. The framework is built on a few core prohibitions that have profound implications for an investor: 1. Riba (Interest): Shariah prohibits earning or paying interest. The philosophy is that money should not make money on its own; it should be used to create real-world value in the economy. This leads to a deep skepticism of debt-laden companies and conventional banks, whose business model is built on interest. 2. Gharar (Excessive Uncertainty or Ambiguity): This is the prohibition of speculative transactions where the outcome is overly uncertain or the terms are unclear. It's a direct stand against gambling and complex derivatives where one party's gain is directly tied to another's loss without creating any underlying value. It pushes investors toward businesses with clear, understandable operations. 3. Haram (Forbidden Activities): Shariah screens out companies that derive significant income from industries considered harmful or unethical. This includes alcohol, pork products, gambling, conventional financial services (due to riba), and entertainment (like pornography or nightclubs). So, a Shariah-compliant investment is simply a share in a company that has passed these ethical and financial checks. It's a business that engages in a permissible activity and does so with a strong, healthy balance_sheet that isn't dependent on the “toxic material” of excessive debt.

“Rule No. 1: Never lose money. Rule No. 2: Never forget Rule No. 1.” - Warren Buffett
¹⁾

For a value investor, the principles of Shariah finance aren't foreign; they are a different dialect of the same language spoken by Benjamin Graham and Warren Buffett. The overlap is not just coincidental; it's fundamental. Here’s why this framework is so powerful from a value_investing perspective:

• In-Built Margin of Safety: The single most important concept in value investing is the margin_of_safety. The strict limits on debt in Shariah screening automatically filter out highly leveraged companies. Businesses that can fund their growth through their own cash flow, rather than debt, are inherently more resilient. They are less vulnerable to interest rate hikes or credit crunches. This focus on a fortress-like balance sheet is a powerful, built-in risk management tool.
• Focus on Tangible, Productive Assets: By forbidding speculation (`Gharar`), Shariah investing forces you to focus on the underlying business. You are investing in companies that make things, provide services, and generate real profits from operations—not from complex financial engineering. This is the very essence of viewing a stock not as a blinking ticker symbol, but as a piece of a real business, a cornerstone of evaluating intrinsic_value.
• Avoids “Business-Model Rot”: The industries excluded by Shariah (alcohol, gambling) often face significant regulatory, legal, and social risks. While they can be profitable, they carry a “headline risk” that can damage a brand's reputation overnight. Furthermore, the exclusion of conventional banks and insurance companies steers investors away from businesses whose balance sheets are notoriously complex and opaque—a major red flag for value investors who follow the principle of “invest only in what you understand.”
• Promotes a Long-Term Mindset: The Shariah framework views finance as a partnership. You are providing capital to a business to help it grow and share in its success. This perspective discourages the short-term, speculative trading that value investors despise. It naturally aligns you with the mindset of a business owner, encouraging you to think in terms of years and decades, not quarters.

Essentially, applying a Shariah screen is like having a very strict, disciplined analyst working for you, automatically discarding the financially weak and the speculatively dangerous, leaving you with a smaller, more robust universe of companies to analyze further.

Applying Shariah principles is a systematic, two-stage screening process. An investor can perform a basic version of this screening themselves to vet potential investments.

Imagine you're the bouncer at an exclusive club for high-quality companies. You have a two-part checklist. Step 1: The Business Activity Screen (The “What Do You Do?” Test) First, you check what the company actually does for a living. To be Shariah-compliant, a company must not derive significant income from prohibited activities. A common benchmark, used by index providers like MSCI and FTSE, is the “5% rule”: a company fails the screen if it gets more than 5% of its total revenue from any of the following:

• Alcohol: Brewers, distillers, and distributors.
• Gambling: Casinos, lottery operators, betting platforms.
• Pork-Related Products: Hog farms, pork processors.
• Conventional Financial Services: Traditional banks, insurance companies, and any firm whose business is primarily based on lending money for interest.
• Adult Entertainment: Production or distribution of pornographic material.
• Tobacco: Manufacturers and major distributors.
• Weapons & Defense: A nuanced category; some standards permit defense contractors while others do not.

If a company passes this first test (e.g., a software company, a healthcare provider, or a manufacturer of consumer goods), it moves to the next stage. Step 2: The Financial Ratio Screens (The “Financial Health Check-up”) Next, you examine the company's financial statements. This is where Shariah’s aversion to debt and impure income comes into play. The goal is to ensure the company's finances are sound and not reliant on interest-based mechanisms. While the exact thresholds can vary slightly between different standards bodies ²⁾, the most widely accepted benchmarks are:

Additionally, there's a final check on “impure” income. The total interest and other non-compliant income a company earns should not exceed 5% of its total revenue. If it does, this income must be “purified” by donating a proportional amount of the investment gains to charity.

A company that passes both the business activity screen and all the financial ratio screens is considered “Shariah-compliant” or “Halal” for investment purposes. From a value investor's perspective, a “pass” is a strong positive signal. It suggests:

• Low Financial Risk: The company is not over-leveraged and is less likely to face distress during economic downturns.
• Operational Focus: The company's profits come from its core business, not from financial maneuvering.
• Simplicity and Transparency: The business is more likely to be straightforward and easier to understand, a key principle for any prudent investor.

A “fail,” especially on the financial screens, is a clear red flag that would concern any value investor, regardless of their ethical framework. A company with debt exceeding 33% of its assets is taking on significant financial risk that could impair its long-term intrinsic_value.

Let's compare two hypothetical companies to see the screening process in action: “Global Spirits & Foods Inc.” and “Precision Robotics Corp.”

Since Global Spirits failed the first test, we don't even need to look at its financials. But let's assume for a moment it was a pure food company and examine the financials of both.

Conclusion: Precision Robotics Corp. would be considered a Shariah-compliant investment. A value investor would also be far more attracted to Precision Robotics. Its permissible business is complemented by a rock-solid balance sheet, making it a much safer long-term investment compared to the highly leveraged Global Spirits, even if we ignored the alcohol business. This example shows how the Shariah screen naturally guides you toward the type of financially conservative companies that value investors seek.

• Enhanced Risk Management: The strict debt screen is a powerful, non-negotiable tool for avoiding the kind of over-leveraged companies that often blow up during recessions. This aligns perfectly with the principle of capital preservation.
• Focus on Quality: By filtering for financial health and ethical business practices, the framework naturally selects for higher-quality, more resilient companies with a potential economic_moat.
• Defense Against Bubbles: The prohibitions on speculation (`Gharar`) and interest (`Riba`) can help investors avoid speculative manias and complex financial products that often have hidden risks.
• Growing Universe: The demand for ethical and Shariah-compliant investing is growing globally, leading to more investment products, ETFs, and research focused on this area.

• Limited Universe: The screening process necessarily excludes a large portion of the market, most notably the entire conventional financial sector (banks, insurance). This can lead to a less diversified portfolio and potential opportunity_cost if those excluded sectors are outperforming.
• Sector Concentration: Shariah-compliant portfolios often have a higher concentration in sectors like technology, healthcare, and industrials, and a lower weight in financials and consumer staples (due to alcohol/tobacco). This can affect performance relative to a broad market index.
• Varying Standards: There isn't one single, universally accepted standard for what constitutes “compliant.” Different scholars and screening services may use slightly different thresholds (e.g., 30% vs. 33% for debt), which can lead to confusion. An investor must understand the specific methodology of any fund they consider.
• Not a Substitute for Fundamental Analysis: Passing a Shariah screen is not a guarantee of a good investment. It means a company is permissible to analyze, not that it's trading at a discount to its intrinsic_value. The hard work of valuation and business analysis must still be done.

• margin_of_safety
• intrinsic_value
• balance_sheet
• debt-to-equity_ratio
• risk_management
• esg_investing
• circle_of_competence