Is Apple (AAPL) stock Halal?

Apple designs, manufactures and markets smartphones, personal computers, tablets, wearables and accessories worldwide: the iPhone and Mac, the iPad, and wearables including AirPods, Apple Watch and Apple Vision Pro. Alongside the hardware sits a high margin services business, from the App Store and iCloud+ to Apple Pay, giving the company recurring income across an installed base of more than 2.2 billion active devices. For Muslim investors, though, the most pressing question about one of the world's most widely owned stocks is simpler: is Apple a Halal investment?

Is Apple Shariah compliant?

Apple is the stock where most Muslim investors first meet the fine print of Shariah screening, and the question is settled by AAOIFI Shariah Standard No. 21. The standard asks two things of a company like this: how much incidental non-permissible income is tolerable (below 5% of revenue), and how much interest exposure is too much (30% of market capitalisation, for investments and debt alike).

Does Apple pass the business activity test?

Yes. Designing and selling hardware, software and digital services is a permissible business. The grey area is the App Store: it earns commission on apps that include content Islam prohibits, from gambling style games to interest based finance apps. AAOIFI treats income like this as incidental so long as it stays below the 5% ceiling, which is why the activity screen and the income screen are read together.

Is Apple's income Halal?

Yes, within AAOIFI's tolerance. Apple's income from non-permissible sources stays below 5% of revenue in the current screening, and the small impure portion is handled through purification: the purification factor shown above tells an AAPL shareholder what share of each dividend to keep and what remainder to donate to charity, so incidental interest income never stays in a Halal portfolio.

Does Apple meet AAOIFI's debt and investment ratio requirements?

Yes. Apple holds one of the largest corporate cash piles in the world, some of it parked in instruments that earn Riba, which is why these are the screens worth watching. In the current screening both ratios sit inside the caps: interest bearing investments and interest bearing debt each stay below 30% of market capitalisation. Because the caps are measured against a market capitalisation that moves daily, our Shariah Supervisory Board has AAPL re-screened every month, and the result above always shows the latest verdict.

Tabadulat is an ADGM regulated brokerage whose license covers Shari'a Compliant Regulated Activities, as the FSRA permission names them. New to the terminology? Gharar and Maysir, Sukuk, Zakat and purification are all explained in plain English.

New to the four screens? Read AAOIFI Standards Explained: What Makes a Stock Halal?