Borobudur Law and Society Journal

Islamic economic law is often introduced through its prohibitions, yet these make full sense only when read with the principles they protect. This article asks how the principles of Islamic economic activity relate to the prohibitions of riba, maisir, gharar, zulm and unlawful (haram) goods, and how Indonesian Islamic banking law turns that relationship into a legal test. It is normative legal research using conceptual and statutory approaches, based on the Qur’an, hadith, Law No 21 of 2008 on Islamic Banking as amended by Law No 4 of 2023, fatwas and academic literature. The findings are that principles such as faith, trust-based ownership, justice, balance, brotherhood and fair distribution set the direction of economic conduct, that each prohibition closes one specific route to exploitation, speculation, ambiguity or unlawful gain, and that the Elucidation of Article 2 of the Law converts the five prohibitions into the statutory benchmark of sharia-compliant banking. The article proposes a two-question assessment for contracts and products, whether an activity follows the principles and whether it is free of the prohibited elements, and notes that the final ruling on a product remains with the authorised fatwa institution.