 In this module, we would be talking about a very important and interesting sale contract called Istisna or commissioned manufacturing. Commissioned manufacturing has a lot of relevance to a number of structures in Islamic banking and finance. In particular, Istisna is relevant to the construction industry and it also has relevance to shipbuilding and similar large projects. Having said that, Istisna in its very simple form can be used for smaller kind of activities as well. In Pakistan, people would actually like to go for some kind of order for buying certain things. Furniture is one example. In case of furniture, if someone goes to a furniture maker and asks the person to make the furniture on order, in that case the purchaser would have to pay some money in advance and the furniture maker may ask the buyer to keep on paying certain amounts of money with the progress of furniture making. This is a local example of Istisna or commissioned manufacturing. As I said, this has been used in Islamic banking and finance in the projects related with the construction and the large projects based on Sukuk or project finance, they have used this kind of sale contract as well. In this sale contract, price is paid in installments over a certain time period and the object of sale is delivered at the end of that period. In this respect, this is a very interesting Islamic sale contract. In a spot sale contract, as we have already learnt, both the price and the object of sale, they are exchanged immediately on spot. In case of murabaha based deferred payment sale, the price is paid at the end after one year, two years or whatever be the agreement. However, the object of sale is delivered immediately. In case of salam, as we have already discussed, the price is paid upfront and the sold item is delivered after some time. In case of Istisna, as I said, the price is paid in installments over a certain time period. However, once the object of sale is ready at the end of that period, it is delivered. So from that viewpoint, this is an interesting sale contract which is permissible in Islam. Example of Istisna could be drawn from construction industry as I have previously mentioned. If a construction company offers to construct homes for people and people would like to go for this kind of arrangement, then the builder or the construction company would ask the buyers to pay a certain amount in advance and the homes would be constructed over a certain time period, for example nine months. So with the passage of time, every month the customers or the home buyers, they would be paying certain amounts of money on inspection of the work done. If the work is being done with satisfaction, the money would be paid by the buyers, customers, and at the end, say after nine months, the homes can be delivered to the buyers. This is one example. However, we can see in Islamic banking and finance the use of Istisna in Sukuk structures as well. I would not be drawing upon Sukuk at this point in time because we have not covered this kind of product so far in this course.