HYG

iShares iBoxx High Yield Bond ETF

HARAM — SCREEN DOES NOT PASSetf

Is HYG Halal?

High-yield (junk) bond ETF — riba with added speculative risk.

What You Should Know

BlackRock's February 28, 2026 statements report $16.312 billion of unaffiliated high-yield corporate bonds, $2.772 billion of affiliated money-market investments and $1.057 billion of unaffiliated interest income. Riba and elevated credit risk make the quantitative and qualitative screens fail.

⚠️ Concerns

  • High-yield bond interest (riba)
  • Speculative and default risk
  • Money-market and securities-lending exposure

Current quantitative Sharia screen

Based on Annual Financial Statements figures for the period ended 2026-02-28; calculated 2026-07-14.

USD · millions
Interest-bearing debt / assets
0.00%Within limit
Below 33.333% under FTSE Yasaar

0 / 19,446.366

Cash + interest-bearing securities / assets
98.16%Above limit
Below 33.333% under FTSE Yasaar

19,088.258 / 19,446.366

Receivables + cash / assets
1.86%Within limit
Below 50% under FTSE Yasaar

362 / 19,446.366

Non-compliant income / revenue
97.57%Above limit
No more than 5% under FTSE Yasaar

1,057.192 / 1,083.54

FTSE Yasaar
v4.6, February 2026
Financial
Fails
Overall
Fails

Interest-bearing securities/assets are 98.16% and disclosed interest income is 97.57% of investment income, while the core activity is conventional debt.

MSCI Islamic (total-assets series)
October 2024 methodology
Financial
Fails
Overall
Fails

Liquidity and interest-bearing investments are far above the examined 33.33% total-assets limit; the core activity is conventional corporate debt.

Malaysia SAC financial ratios
single 5% activity benchmark adopted November 2025
Financial
Fails
Overall
Fails

Interest-bearing investments are above the examined Malaysia financial limits and the fund's core activity is conventional lending.

Market-cap denominator methods
MSCI M-Series, S&P and Dow Jones methods differ
Financial
Not calculated
Overall
Fails

Market-cap methods are not applicable to a bond fund; total-assets screens already fail on core conventional debt exposure.

Business-activity disclosure

HYG's core activity is owning below-investment-grade corporate bonds and earning contractual interest, with additional credit and speculative risk.

Limitation: None material for the core conventional-bond conclusion; secondary activities such as securities lending do not alter it.

Purification

The filing discloses substantial interest income from the fund's core holdings; purification does not convert a conventional high-yield bond ETF into a permissible investment.

Inputs, assumptions and primary sources
  • Amounts are USD millions converted from the February 28, 2026 iShares iBoxx annual statements.
  • HYG reports $16,311.952934 million of unaffiliated corporate bonds, $2,772.355622 million of affiliated money-market investments, $3.949669 million of cash and $358.050218 million of receivables against $19,446.365771 million of total assets.
  • Total investment income is $1,083.539652 million, including $1,057.191721 million of unaffiliated interest; the conservative prohibited-revenue input treats high-yield bond-fund income as non-compliant core activity.
  • Collateral on securities lending is a fund liability but is not treated as interest-bearing investment debt in this screen.

This is a reproducible financial screen, not a fatwa. A failed total-assets screen can coexist with a pass under a market-cap methodology. ZakatInvest keeps the qualitative assessment separate so numerical thresholds do not erase material context.

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