Legal and Jurisprudential Analysis of Islamic Treasury Bills (Type I)

Islamic treasury bills are new financial instruments which the government introduced in 1392 to settle private creditors' claims from the government. These types of documents, considered debt securities, are means of compensating for government deficits in the short run in other countries. In Iran, two Islamic treasury bills have been introduced. The first type is used to settle private contractors' claims from the government and this is not to be confused with conventional treasury bills and those employed in pre-revolution Iran to compensate for the government's budget deficit. In contrast, there is the second type of Islamic treasury bills used to cover temporary budget deficits of the government functionally similar to the conventional ones. In Islamic jurisprudence, the question is whether the first type treasury bills can pay extra to creditors due to their delay in paying off their debts. Furthermore, identifying the legal nature of the basic contract of issuing Islamic treasury bills and its comparison with its similar entities such as treasury securities clearing can clarify the comprehensiveness of the regulations governing this type of securities, the rights and obligations of the contract parties and its implications. In this research, the above questions are examined and some amendments are proposed about the basic laws for issuing these documents.