INVESTING INHERITED AND DIGITAL ASSETS THROUGH THE ṢUKŪK MARKET: A JURISTIC (FIQHĪ) AND ECONOMIC STUDY

Abstract

Ṣukūk, since their formal codification by the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI), have matured from a niche instrument of sovereign financing into a global capital-market asset class exceeding one trillion United States dollars in outstanding value[1], with global outstanding ṣukūk reaching approximately US$902.8 billion in 2024 alone[2]. This article investigates whether ṣukūk structures—understood in AAOIFI Sharīʿah Standard No. 17 as certificates representing undivided ownership in tangible assets, usufruct, or services[3]—can be lawfully and prudently deployed to hold, transmit, and grow two categories of contemporary wealth that classical fiqh did not directly contemplate: assets passing through Islamic inheritance (farāʾiḍ) and digital assets such as cryptocurrency, tokenized property, and online intellectual property. Employing a doctrinal-comparative methodology, the study situates the debate within the classical theory of māl (property) and the maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah, engages contemporary AAOIFI and IFSB standards, and reviews recent empirical literature on tokenized ṣukūk. The article argues that a Sharīʿah-compliant “inheritance-ṣukūk” structure is jurisprudentially defensible provided that genuine ownership (milkiyyah ḥaqīqiyyah), possession (qabḍ), and freedom from excessive uncertainty (gharar fāḥish) are preserved, and it proposes a regulatory and fiqhī framework for such instruments.