Islamic Legal Maxims and their Relevance to Business and Finance Md. Habiburrahman * Abstract Due to versatility and wide-ranging articulation, Islamic legal maxims tend to encapsulate the broader concepts and precepts of Islamic jurisprudence. More importantly, they are capable of helping one in arriving at the appropriate ruling where no explicit law exists. This paper aims to conduct an applied study of Islamic legal maxims in business and finance. The study follows the descriptive and analytical methods. Through the study of selective classical and contemporary literature on the subject the paper demonstrates the widespread applications of Islamic legal maxims in the field of business and finance preceded by the discussion on some backgrounds pertaining to these maxims. The paper posits that Islamic legal maxims are one of the sciences which aphoristically subsume all the spectrums in which the objectives of the SharÊÑah are promoted. There are five leading maxims on which the tent of Islamic law is grounded. The study focuses on the relevance of these maxims to business and finance and it also exhibits the vast application of some other important sub-Islamic legal maxims in civil transactions from various segments. Both of these leading maxims and sub-maxims are discussed under following sub-headings: permissibility versus prohibition in civil transactions, forms versus substances of the contracts, certainty and doubt, removal of detriments, the rules of necessity, risk and reward, right of ownership versus government intervention, the role of custom, and flexibility in the law of civil transactions. The study concludes that the maxims are inclined to give a bird’s-eye-view of their contents in ingenious ways without involving onerous details. Key Words: Islamic Legal Maxims, Business and Finance, Form and Substance, Removal of Detriments, Rules of Necessity, Role of Custom, Risk and Reward. * PhD Researcher, Dept. of Fiqh and Usul al-Fiqh, International Islamic University Malaysia; the author can be reached at hrnizamee@yahoo.com