✦ Islamic Software Licenses

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ

Source-available · Ethically restricted · Version 1.0

Software licensing rooted
in the principles of Islam

Four licenses that let you share your work while refusing its use for oppression, usury, intoxicants, gambling, and the industries Islam forbids. Justice (ʿadl) as a license term.

Choose a license Read the FAQ

Choose your license

Every variant carries the same ethical use restrictions. They differ in what they let others do with your code.

LicenseRef-ISL-P-1.0

ISL — Permissive

The adoption-friendly choice. Others may use, modify, distribute, and sell your software — the ethical restrictions travel with every copy.

  • Modify & redistribute
  • Commercial use
  • Patent grant included
  • Derivatives may relicense (restrictions still bind)
Read ISL-P

LicenseRef-ISL-C-1.0

ISL — Copyleft

A waqf for your code: what is endowed to the community remains endowed. Derivatives must stay under ISL-C with source disclosed.

  • Modify & redistribute
  • Commercial use
  • Derivatives stay ISL-C, source disclosed
  • Patent grant included
Read ISL-C

LicenseRef-ISL-R-1.0

ISL — Restricted

Source visible for transparency and inspection only. Use is permitted, including internal commercial use, but no modification or redistribution.

  • Source viewable
  • Use, incl. internal commercial
  • No modification
  • No redistribution
Read ISL-R

LicenseRef-ISL-EULA-1.0

ISL — EULA

A proprietary end-user license template for closed-source products. Fill in your product, keep the same ethical restrictions on every end user.

  • Closed-source distribution
  • Commercial licensing terms
  • No source access
  • No reverse engineering
Read ISL-EULA
Permission ISL-P ISL-C ISL-R ISL-EULA
View source✦✦✦✕
Use commercially✦✦✦✦*
Modify✦✦✕✕
Redistribute✦✦✕✕
Sublicense / sell copies✦✦✕✕
Derivatives must share alike✕✦——
Patent grant✦✦✕✕
Ethical use restrictions (§4–§5)✦✦✦✦
OSI open source✕✕✕✕

✦ permitted · ✕ not permitted · — not applicable · * as defined by the licensor in the EULA’s commercial terms.

What every variant refuses

All four licenses prohibit use of the software in service of: shirk and idol worship · riba (interest-based finance) · pornography and sexual exploitation · gambling · intoxicants · the pork industry · unjust weapons use · tobacco · corruption and moral subversion · zina and lewdness · abortion · genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, torture, and regimes engaged in them. The full text of Sections 4 and 5 is identical across the family.