Question 1

What does it mean when a stock "passes our AAOIFI screen"?

Accepted Answer

It means that, based on the financial data we could gather and verify, the company passed every step of our automated AAOIFI Standard 21 screen: its core business is permissible and all three financial ratios are within the accepted limits. This is a screening RESULT produced by software — it is not a fatwa, a religious ruling, or a recommendation to buy. Always confirm with your own qualified scholar.

Question 2

How exactly do you screen a stock?

Accepted Answer

We follow the published AAOIFI Shariah Standard No. 21 in two stages. First, the business-activity check: if the company's core activity is non-permissible (conventional interest-based banking or insurance, alcohol, tobacco, gambling, pork, adult content, weapons of mass impact), it fails immediately. Then, if the activity is fine, we run three financial-ratio checks — the well-known 30/30/5 thresholds: interest-bearing debt under 30% of market cap, cash plus interest-bearing investments under 30%, and impure (non-compliant) income under 5% of total revenue. A company must pass the activity stage and all three ratios to be screened as Sharia-compliant.

Question 3

How is this different from just trusting a single data provider?

Accepted Answer

We do not trust any single feed. Every figure that drives a verdict is cross-verified across independent sources — SEC EDGAR filings, Yahoo Finance, and Finnhub — and we require at least 2-of-3 to agree before we treat a number as confirmed. If the sources disagree materially or the data is missing, we mark the result as "not enough data" rather than guessing. This cross-check is the whole point: one bad feed should never produce a confident-but-wrong halal verdict.

Question 4

Can a stock's compliance change over time?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Compliance is not permanent. A company can take on more interest-bearing debt, accumulate more cash, enter a non-permissible line of business, or its market cap can fall — any of which can push a previously-compliant name over a ratio threshold (or back under it). We re-screen regularly, so a verdict you see today can be different next quarter. Always re-check before acting.

Question 5

Which markets do you cover?

Accepted Answer

US-listed stocks and ETFs are covered fully, because filings and fundamentals are the most complete and reliable there. Other markets — Saudi Arabia, the UAE, the UK, Germany, Japan, India, Canada, Australia, France and others — are covered on a best-effort basis: we screen them where we can verify enough data, and where we cannot, we honestly return "not enough data" instead of a guess.

Question 6

Is this financial advice or a religious ruling?

Accepted Answer

No. HalalStock provides automated screening analysis for information only. It is not a fatwa, not financial advice, and not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold anything. We do our best but cannot guarantee the data or verdicts are accurate, complete, or current. You are responsible for your own decisions — always confirm with a qualified scholar and a licensed financial advisor.

Question 7

What is free and what is paid?

Accepted Answer

For our first 3 months everything is free with a free account — checking any stock or ETF (result, compliance score, and reasoning in all 7 languages), the Zakat tools, and the full REST API + MCP server for apps and AI agents (100 calls/day). No card needed; paid plans come after the launch period.

Question 8

How do the API and MCP work?

Accepted Answer

Everything on the site is also available as a JSON REST API: get a verdict, compliance score, ratios, alternatives, Zakat, and purification for any symbol with a single request authenticated by an API key. For AI agents we expose the same capability over MCP (Model Context Protocol), so an assistant can screen a stock or compute Zakat as a tool call. See the developers page for endpoints, the OpenAPI spec, and the agent skill file.

Question 9

How is Zakat or purification calculated?

Accepted Answer

Zakat on shares depends on intent. For shares held for trading, Zakat is due on the full market value; for shares held as a long-term investment, it is due on the company's underlying zakatable assets (a per-share figure from the balance sheet), and where that data is missing we fall back to market value rather than showing zero. The standard rate is 2.5% once the holding meets nisab. Purification is the separate step of estimating the small share of dividend income that came from non-permissible sources, so you can give it away. Both are estimates to help you — confirm the final amount with your scholar.

Question 10

What about ETFs and funds — how are those judged?

Accepted Answer

For a fund we look through to its holdings: a certified Sharia fund (e.g. SPUS, HLAL) with clean holdings is treated as compliant, while a conventional broad-market fund (e.g. SPY, QQQ, VTI) is screened as not compliant even if its individual holdings look fine, because of its structure and non-permissible income. When we can get the full holdings list we screen every holding, not just the top ten.

إجابات بلغة بسيطة حول كيفية الفرز، وماذا يعني الحكم، والتغطية، والأسعار، وواجهة البرمجة، والزكاة.

ماذا يعني أن سهماً "يجتاز فحص أيوفي لدينا"؟

كيف تفحصون السهم بالضبط؟

بمَ يختلف هذا عن الاكتفاء بمصدر بيانات واحد؟

هل يتغيّر توافق السهم مع مرور الوقت؟

ما الأسواق التي تغطّونها؟

هل هذه نصيحة مالية أو حكم شرعي؟

ما المجاني وما المدفوع؟

كيف تعمل واجهة البرمجة وMCP؟

كيف تُحسب الزكاة أو التطهير؟

ماذا عن صناديق ETF والصناديق — كيف يُحكم عليها؟