Does listing a company's shares for trading mean that it has assets and has conducted business, or could buying and selling in this case be considered usury?

It is permissible to subscribe to shares in companies with permissible and non-usurious activities. As for selling shares during the founding stage, before the existence of tangible assets, our fatwa states that it takes the ruling of currency exchange (sarf), which is also the ruling issued by the Islamic Fiqh Council. However, some researchers deem it permissible to trade shares of newly established companies unconditionally, even if most of their assets are cash, citing several proofs, including:

1. That companies are not devoid of other valuable intangible and tangible assets.

2. That the Sharia classification of shares – according to many contemporary scholars – is that they are trade goods.

3. That the increase in the share’s value after trading is not an increase in the value of the assets, but rather in the value of the share itself.

4. Assuming that the sale of shares takes the ruling of what the share represents in terms of assets, then the hadith of Ibn Omar indicates that mixed cash in a sale, if not intended, is not given attention and the ruling of currency exchange (sarf) does not apply to it if the intention of the purchase is other than cash.

5. Assuming that cash in the company is intended and that selling shares takes the ruling of selling its assets, then its form is like "a measure of dates and a dirham," and the contract is valid under two conditions: that the individual usurious money is more than what is accompanied by other things, and that the intention of the transaction is not to circumvent usury, both of which are met in the sale of these shares.