From a shari’a perspective, profit (ribh, in Arabic) is the amount by which capital (ras al-mal) is increased or the amount produced by putting capital into use through different legitimate modes of trading and financing. For example, if under a musharakah (sharikah) contract, the partners who contributed $1 million in capital have made $100,000 by the end of fiscal year in excess of the capital employed, then the partnership is said to have generated a $100,000 profit (ribh).
Yield (ghallah, in Arabic), on the other hand, is the increase in the value of current assets resulting from market price changes, rather than the activities of trading or investing. For example, if a company has an amount of $200,000 in inventory, and due to increases in market prices, inventory items gained $50,000 in value, then the increase in the value of current assets is referred to as yield (ghallah).
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