Intellectual and jurisprudential foundations of Sharia compliant decentralized Finance ڈی سینٹرلائزڈ فائنانس کی شرعی تکییف (SC-DeFi) کی فکری و فقہی بنیادیں

Abstract

Decentralized Finance (DeFi) has introduced a blockchain-based, intermediary-free model of financial services, raising a pressing juristic question: can such a system be reconciled with the principles of Islamic finance? This study focuses specifically on the intellectual and jurisprudential (fikri and fiqhi) foundations of that reconciliation rather than on technical architecture. Adopting a qualitative, doctrinal, analytical, and comparative method, it first establishes the philosophical and economic convergence between the two systems—shared commitments to the removal of exploitative intermediation, transparency (nafy al-jahalah), linkage to real assets (ʿayn), profit-and-loss sharing (mudarabah and musharakah), and financial inclusion (hifz al-mal). It then argues that the classical instruments of Islamic legal reasoning—ijtihad, maslahah mursalah, ʿurf, and qiyas—furnish sufficient juristic space to characterize smart contracts, tokenization, liquidity pools, and decentralized governance within the framework of Islamic contract theory. The study concludes that DeFi carries no inherent contradiction with Islamic finance; rather, with disciplined ijtihad and adherence to the objectives of the Shariah (maqasid al-Shariah), its instruments can be legitimately grounded in established fiqhi principles, providing a firm conceptual basis for future architectural and empirical research in Islamic decentralized finance.