The sale of a monetary amount in exchange for another monetary amount. More specifically, it is the exchange of one currency for another. In the pre-Islamic era, sarf was used to refer to the exchange of gold for gold, silver for silver, gold for silver or silver for gold. In Islamic shari’a, it used to mean the sale of price for price, where each price is regarded as consideration or countervalue for the other.

Sarf, or al-sarf, is an Arabic term that means “currency exchange”. It is also known in Arabic as bai’ al-thaman bil thaman.