 In this module, we would be looking at investment contracts. So far, we have discussed sale contracts. We have discussed lease contracts. And now we are going to discuss Islamic investment contracts. And in the classification of contracts which we covered quite a few segments back, we mentioned that investment contracts are very important in the context of Islamic economics. And of course, in the context of Islamic banking and finance as well. Before I go into details of Islamic investment contracts in a general way, I would like to mention an interesting observation. When we discuss Islamic books, we get a reference for investment, we also get a reference for money. And the amount of money is quite a number of injunctions are there and explained very properly. One thing that is not found in Islamic books is savings. Savings apparently are emphasized upon in an economic, especially macroeconomic framework. But there is very limited, in fact, no mention of savings in Islamic literature in a positive context. Wherever savings are mentioned in Arabic, when it comes to savings, it is taken into a negative context. So there is no emphasis on savings. Savings are actually considered as an idle activity and savings are frowned upon in an Islamic context. They are okay if these savings, the wealth is invested. So there are quite a number of Islamic investment contracts and arrangements, which are being used in the context of Islamic banking and finance as well. So basic principles related with investment contracts are, number one, there is no fixed return on the investments. So this is an important thing, no fixed return. Investment is a business activity. It is risky and hence there could be a possibility of loss and of course everyone would like to go for investment in the hope of earning some profit. However, in case of investments, expecting a fixed return, that is not possible. Now in an Islamic framework, the partners into an investment activity, they must be treated as per their investment shares when a loss occurs. When a loss occurs, the amount of investment done in any business must bear the same loss. For example, two people have invested Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 50,000 in a business and Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 50,000 means they have invested Rs. 1,000,000 in total. After a year, if Rs. 30,000 is lost, then Rs. 15,000 will be the loss of one and Rs. 15,000 will be the loss of the other. In Islam, it is not that the loss of one becomes Rs. 20,000 and the loss of the other becomes Rs. 10,000. Profit on the other hand side can be distributed in accordance with any pre-agreed profit distribution ratio. Loss would always be borne with respect to the investment shares. Now the simplest form of investment activity is an investment agency. This is also known as Vakala Bill Istithmar or we simply use it as Vakala Istithmar. What happens in this case? In this case, the investment agent receives the money and invests in a specific agreed business activity. This business activity could be an actual shop, it could be investing in stocks of listed companies or it could be any legitimate or sharia compliant activity. Whatever profit is generated, if there is any, that would be actually the profit of the investors. The investment agent would receive a fixed fee or a fee proportionate to the investment amount. So in this case, there is no profit or profit loss sharing in the context of investment. The investment agent just receives a fee. However, there are two other arrangements Mudaraba and Musharaka in which case there is profit sharing and there is profit loss sharing. Mudaraba and we would go through it in some detail in one of the forthcoming segments. It is a profit sharing arrangement. Musharaka is a profit loss sharing arrangement. In case of Vakala Istithmar, there is no profit sharing between the investment agent and the investors unless the investors have agreed to give a proportion of the profit to the investment agent as a bonus.