Every coin on CryptoUmmah is screened against the same 27 criteria. Each criterion is scored 0–100 from primary-source research (protocol documentation, on-chain data, audits, tokenomics disclosures) and mapped to the three classical prohibitions of Islamic finance and five project diligence dimensions. A scholar reviews each published screening.
Judgment principles
Every criterion is assessed against the cryptocurrency's own design, protocol, and intended function — not against how third parties might choose to misuse it. A neutral instrument is not rendered impermissible merely because some people use it for haram ends, just as fiat currency remains permissible despite centuries of misuse for gambling, fraud and crime. Only an asset designed for a sole or primary haram purpose is judged on that basis; where a coin's features (privacy, or the availability of leverage, for example) can be misused, that is noted factually but is not determinative of the coin's own rating.
Infrastructure protocols — Layer-1s, oracle networks, smart-contract platforms — are judged on their own protocol-level mechanics. A base protocol with no interest-based or gambling mechanics of its own is not penalised on the riba and maysir pillars for third-party applications built on top of it, provided the protocol itself neither charges nor promotes them.
Meme coin policy
Assets whose own identity and design is a meme or speculation token are governed by maysir, and maysir is independently disqualifying: no strength elsewhere in the composite can rescue a gambling instrument. Meme-class assets are capped at Mashbooh or Haram regardless of their riba or gharar scores — the cap tightens to Haram where the speculation/utility criterion (C13) shows minimal genuine adoption, and holds at Mashbooh where the coin has developed real usage alongside its speculative trading. A meme coin cannot reach Halal on this methodology, no matter how large its market cap or how long it has traded.
The three pillars
- Riba (Interest) — Prohibition of guaranteed, time-based returns on money. 10 criteria contribute to this pillar.
- Gharar (Uncertainty) — Prohibition of contracts with excessive ambiguity or hidden risk. 15 criteria contribute to this pillar.
- Maysir (Gambling) — Prohibition of gambling and pure zero-sum speculation. 11 criteria contribute to this pillar.
Verdict thresholds
| Score | Verdict | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 88–100 | HALAL — Highly Recommended | No purification required. |
| 70–87.9 | HALAL — Recommended with Purification | Compliant, with a disclosed purification band for incidental non-compliant income. |
| 50–69.9 | MASHBOOH — Doubtful / Risky | Material, unresolved concerns in one or more pillars, or a categorical override — cautious investors should review flagged criteria. |
| 0–49.9 | HARAM — Not Permissible | Non-compliant. Core mechanics conflict with Shariah principles. |
Purification
Where a HALAL-rated project earns a small share of income from non-compliant sources (for example, incidental interest on treasury balances), we publish a purification band— the percentage of your investment profit, not principal, to donate to charity (not from zakat funds). The band is computed deterministically from the compliance score, not estimated: it scales from near 0% just below the clean-pass threshold (score 88) up to 8–10% at the Mashbooh floor (score 50), so a lower score always means a higher purification requirement. Assets rated Haram cannot be purified — the guidance is to exit the position and donate any profits. The band is shown on each coin's report.
How the 27 criteria feed the 3 pillars
Every criterion contributes to one or more of the three Shariah pillars — some feed a single pillar, others (like asset backing) touch all three. The diagram below traces that wiring end to end.
The 27 criteria
Legitimacy (4 criteria)
| # | Criterion | Description | Feeds pillars |
|---|---|---|---|
| C1 | Team Transparency & Credibility | Whether the founding and current team are publicly identified, credentialed, and accountable. Anonymous or unverifiable teams score lower, as unaccountability is a source of gharar. | Gharar |
| C2 | Fraud & Scam Risk | Evidence of fraud allegations, security breaches, rug-pull indicators, or regulatory warnings, weighed against community trust signals and track record. | Maysir |
| C3 | Use Case Legitimacy | Whether the project solves a genuine problem with real-world applications in use, or exists primarily on hype and speculation. | Maysir |
| C4 | Ethical Practices | Whether the asset's own design or operations touch prohibited industries. Judged on the project's design and intended function, not on third-party misuse. | Gharar |
Project (9 criteria)
| # | Criterion | Description | Feeds pillars |
|---|---|---|---|
| C5 | Core Protocol Business | What the base protocol itself does, and whether its core activity sits in any prohibited sector. Third-party applications built on the protocol are assessed separately. | Riba, Maysir |
| C6 | Transaction Fees | How network fees are handled — burned, fairly distributed, or extracted in a riba-like manner. | Riba |
| C7 | Treasury Assets | Whether the protocol or foundation treasury holds interest-bearing assets. | Riba |
| C8 | Revenue Model | How the base protocol generates revenue, and whether any of it derives from interest-based mechanisms. | Riba, Maysir |
| C9 | Transparency | Openness of the codebase, quality of disclosures, and visibility of protocol operations and upgrades. | Gharar |
| C10 | Governance | Clarity and decentralisation of decision-making, including who controls upgrades and treasury. | Gharar |
| C11 | Launch Fairness | Whether the token launched fairly or with pre-mines, insider allocations, or privileged early access. | Gharar, Maysir |
| C12 | Token Distribution | Breadth and fairness of token allocation, concentration risk, and vesting discipline. | Gharar, Maysir |
| C13 | Speculation / Utility Ratio | Whether the token's economic activity is dominated by genuine utility or by speculation. For meme-class assets, this criterion serves as the adoption test under our meme coin policy. | Gharar, Maysir |
Financial (4 criteria)
| # | Criterion | Description | Feeds pillars |
|---|---|---|---|
| C14 | Protocol Revenue | The sources of protocol income and whether any revenue stream is riba-based. | Riba |
| C15 | Financial Status | Stability and transparency of the project's finances and market standing. | Gharar, Maysir |
| C16 | Interest Assessment | Whether the base protocol itself offers lending, borrowing, or interest-bearing yield at the protocol level. | Riba |
| C17 | Audit Quality | Whether the protocol is audited by named, reputable firms with public findings. Unaudited or unverifiable code is a material source of gharar. | Gharar |
Tokenomics (5 criteria)
| # | Criterion | Description | Feeds pillars |
|---|---|---|---|
| C18 | Token Purpose | Whether the token has genuine utility — required for network operation or real use cases — or exists as a meme or speculative instrument. | Maysir |
| C19 | Governance Rights | Whether holders have defined governance rights. Marked N/A where a token simply has none by design and the absence raises no Shariah concern. | Gharar |
| C20 | Rewards Distribution | Whether holder rewards are variable and performance-based (permissible profit-sharing) or fixed and guaranteed (interest-like). | Riba, Gharar |
| C21 | Speculation Controls | Presence of meaningful anti-speculation design — lock-ups, anti-whale mechanisms, or supply discipline. Marked N/A only where there is genuinely nothing to control, such as an inherently stable asset, never to excuse a speculative coin. | Maysir |
| C22 | Asset Backing | What stands behind the token — halal assets, genuine utility, or nothing. | Riba, Gharar, Maysir |
Staking (5 criteria)
| # | Criterion | Description | Feeds pillars |
|---|---|---|---|
| C23 | Mechanism Type | The structure of staking: custody, lock-up terms, slashing exposure, and flexibility. Non-custodial designs with clear terms score higher. | Gharar |
| C24 | Islamic Contract Classification | Which classical contract the staking arrangement most closely resembles — Mudarabah, Wakalah, or Ju'alah (favourable) versus Qard with increment (impermissible) or an unclassifiable, contested structure. | Riba |
| C25 | Rewards Structure | Whether staking rewards are variable and derived from real network activity, or fixed and guaranteed in an interest-like manner. | Riba |
| C26 | Documentation | Whether staking terms and risks are fully and clearly disclosed. | Gharar |
| C27 | Shariah Alignment | Overall alignment of the staking arrangement: level of gharar, fairness of treatment, and whether any decisive Shariah question about the mechanism remains unresolved. | Gharar |
Scoring roll-up
Pillar scores are the average of each pillar's applicable criteria — criteria genuinely inapplicable to an asset (for example, staking criteria on a coin with no staking mechanism) are excluded from the denominator rather than defaulted, so an absence never masquerades as a score. The overall score is a weighted composite of the three pillars: riba 38.33%, gharar 33.33%, maysir 28.33%. Categorical overrides sit above the composite — the meme cap described above, and the infrastructure floor on riba and maysir for base-layer protocols with no protocol-level interest or gambling mechanics of their own.
Quality controls
Every criterion's score is checked against its own written justification before publication — a consistency audit that flags, for example, a high score paired with hedged or unresolved language, or a low score paired with unreservedly positive language, so a rating and its stated reasoning cannot silently contradict each other. Screenings are re-run when a protocol or its disclosures change materially, and every report shows its last-reviewed date.
Version changelog
v3.1 — current published criteria set: 27 criteria across five diligence dimensions, weighted three-pillar composite scoring, categorical overrides for meme-class assets and infrastructure protocols, and score/justification consistency auditing prior to publication.
See the full list of 27 criteria above, or browse all screened coins.