Arabic (أصل) for a number of terms with different meanings or connotations in different contexts. For one, it may denote “an asset“, that is, a present economic resource (mawrid) that an entity controls as a result of a transaction occurred in the past, or a past event or condition, that has the potential to produce future benefits for the entity. In Islamic finance, assets are attributed to equity, quasi-equity, and liabilities.

It may also refer to the principal amount (as in the term: asl al-qardh, the par value of a loan, or its principal), which represents the nominal or original value (or face value) of an instrument/ investment/ monetary aggregate, etc.

In yet another distinct context, asl means a principle or an original rule, a substance or origin of a case or a matter, etc. For example, the Shari’ah maxim: al-asl fi-l ashia’a al-ibahah (original rule of anything/ any matter is its permissibility).