Your money is a trust.

Why a Muslim invests, why it has to be halal, and where to start.

1,596 US companies on our list, checked every month, last cycle October 1, 2026. The market read every weekday. Free.

Why invest

We have an obligation to care for the money we are entrusted with.

Money is an amanah: a trust, not a possession. You answer for where it came from and for how it is kept. It can live in three places, and leaving it in the first two is a decision too.

A home

One big asset. Moves slowly, cannot be sold in pieces, and you have to live somewhere anyway.

A drawer

Cash, or a savings account. It shrinks as prices rise, it owes zakat each year it sits, and the interest a savings account pays is not ours to keep.

A business

Grows with the people who run it. The stock market is where ordinary people own a of one, or a of many. A fund is one purchase that holds many companies at once.

So a share of what you are responsible for belongs in good businesses. Not all of it. A share, held patiently, in a basket rather than a bet, knowing that businesses can also lose money for a while. Here is what that patience paid, falls included:

The same $10,000, two places.

-27% fall, 2021–2022

202120222023202420252026

$30,765in the halal S&P 500$7,627kept as cash, what it still buys

3.1×

$10,000 from the end of December 2019 became $30,765 in , dividends reinvested. Kept as cash it still reads $10,000, but buys what $7,627 bought then.

Sources and assumptions

Growth of $10,000 from the first month-end after SPUS began trading on December 17, 2019 (first point December 31, 2019) to the last close, October 30, 2026. SPUS adjusted closes with dividends reinvested. The cash line is $10,000 deflated by the US consumer price index, published to September, 2026, so it runs one month behind the fund line. The marked fall is the largest peak-to-trough drop in the SPUS line, -26.8% from December, 2021 to September, 2022. Past performance does not guarantee future results. SPUS adjusted closes (SP Funds S&P 500 Sharia ETF, launched December 17, 2019) · BLS CPI-U, monthly index

Why halal, and where to start

We also have an obligation to make sure that what we invest in is halal.

Not every business qualifies. More than half of the S&P 500 fails a halal screen: about 215 of the 500 companies pass (SP Funds, SPUS holdings, October 9, 2026). Some fail for what they sell, more for how they borrow. Three rules decide it; we run them on 1,596 US companies every month.

Rule one

The business itself is good.

No alcohol, gambling, weapons, adult content, or banks that live on interest. The rule most people know; on its own, not enough.

Rule two

It is not drowning in debt.

It doesn't owe much, and it doesn't park much cash where it earns interest. Each stays under about a third of what the company is worth.

Rule three

Give away the crumbs.

If a sliver of its income is impermissible, that sliver of your goes to charity. ; we do the arithmetic.

That is the whole screen. The exact thresholds are in the paper.

Where to start

You probably already have a door: your 401(k).

If your employer offers a retirement plan, a slice of your pay should be going in; the match alone is a raise. Many big employers' plans have an extra option that lets you pick your own funds, including halal ones. One question to ask the plan administrator: "Does my plan have a self-directed brokerage option?"

No plan at work? Any works the same way: open one, fund it a little at a time, hold a basket. The halal funds are listed under Is it halal?, re-checked every month.

Already invested? Type each fund in your plan into the lookup. Every answer carries its date.