Jurisprudential Evaluation of Drafting Islamic Treasury Bills in Islamic Financial Market

Treasury bills are one of the important and useful instruments used in financial markets. Although these instruments are distributed with the principle aim of making up government budget deficiencies, various other uses such as: being a medium of short term investments, a scale to gauge financial market's floor and most importantly,acting as an effective instrument for the Central Bank in execution of monetary policies; have given a special role [and status] to these instruments. Considering the prohibition of usury (interest) in Islam traditional treasury bills, because of their usury oriented nature, are not functional in an Islamic financial system. Thus an Islamic financial market's need towards having short term and low-risk financial instruments, which can substitute treasury bills in monetary and financial operations, is completely evident. The main question infocus in this article is that: referring to the teachings of Islamic jurisprudence is it possible to draft short term low-risk financial papers as Islamic treasury bills? Using a descriptive-analytic method of research, this article analyzes various types of Islamic treasury bills from the aspect of their compatibility with religious principles. In the end we demonstrate that in cases where government dues towards banks, companies and public or private institutes, belong to actual purchases of goods and services such as supply or construction contracts, buying and selling of such bills according to most of the Islamic sects, including Shiitejurisprudence and Iranian laws, is permissible. Therefore, based on such dues,short term financial bills with low risks can be offered as Islamic treasury bills.