actually charged. If no fee is taken, the transaction is classed as an unrestricted ḥawālah according to those who do not require the transferee to be already indebted to the transferor—namely, the Ḥanafīs—whereas the other jurists treat it as a saftajah, meaning that a person hands money to another so that it may be repaid to the giver, or to the giver’s agent, in another town. If a fee is charged, the arrangement is an agency contract for remuneration. When the parties who execute these transfers offer their services to the general public, they are liable for the amounts transferred, in accordance with the rule that the composite wage-earner bears liability.
(b) If the funds to be paid out under the transfer are to be delivered in a currency different from that provided by the applicant, the operation consists of a currency exchange (ṣarf) followed by a ḥawālah as described in paragraph (a). The exchange must precede the transfer: the customer hands the amount to the bank, the bank records it in its ledgers after both parties agree on the exchange rate stated in the document given to the customer, and only then is the ḥawālah executed. Allah knows best.
11. Paper money
Once it is understood that the ribā-bearing cause for gold and silver is their function as a medium of exchange (thamaniyyah), the fiqh academies have concluded that the same cause—thamaniyyah—applies to paper currency.
The Council of Senior Scholars in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in its Resolution no. 10, declared: “Paper money is to be regarded as currency in its own right, just as gold, silver, and other media of exchange are currencies. It comprises distinct genera that vary with the issuing authority: Saudi paper money is one genus, American paper money another, and so on—each paper currency is an independent genus. From this, the following Sharīʿah rulings ensue:
First: Both categories of ribā apply to it, exactly as they apply to gold and silver. This entails the following:
(a) It is impermissible to sell a single genus of it, part of it for part of it, or for another of the