Quick Verdict
ZakatInvest's current qualitative classification for Disney (DIS) is haram, while its current total-assets financial screens pass. The classification reflects documented mature-rated Hulu content, ESPN sportsbook and odds-provider integration, and alcohol sales at Walt Disney World. Disney does not disclose enough detail to calculate the applicable prohibited-revenue percentage, so the quantitative business screen remains incomplete.
Disney's Current Business Segments
- Entertainment: $11.715 billion of quarterly segment revenue from streaming, television networks, films, content licensing and related activities
- Sports: $4.609 billion from ESPN and other sports media, including subscription, affiliate and advertising revenue
- Experiences: $9.487 billion from parks, resorts, cruises, merchandise, food and beverage, and consumer-products licensing
- Eliminations: $(643) million, producing $25.168 billion of consolidated quarterly revenue
These segment totals are useful context, but none is wholly prohibited. Treating all Entertainment, Sports, or Experiences revenue as haram would materially overstate the screened numerator.
Key Concerns
Hulu — Mature-Rated Content
Hulu's official ratings disclosure includes TV-MA programming that may contain explicit sexual activity, crude language, or graphic violence. This is materially different from claiming every Hulu title is impermissible. Disney does not disclose the revenue attributable to content that a particular scholarly standard would exclude.
ESPN and Sports Gambling
The old ESPN BET sportsbook agreement with PENN ended effective December 1, 2025; PENN's sportsbook became theScore Bet. ESPN now identifies DraftKings as its official sportsbook and odds provider, with odds, betting content, a betting tab, and promotions integrated across ESPN's ecosystem. Gambling is maysir, but Disney does not isolate the revenue attributable to these advertising, promotional, data, and integration activities.
Alcohol at Theme Parks
Walt Disney World's own policy confirms that alcoholic beverages are sold to eligible adult guests. The filing combines merchandise, food and beverage within larger revenue categories and does not state what portion comes from alcohol, so the previous “small portion” characterization cannot be quantified.
Financial Screening
The calculation below uses Disney's latest available Form 10-Q as of this review and links directly to the official filing at the SEC. It uses one fiscal period and deliberately overincludes the entire investments balance and mixed interest-and-investment income line rather than assuming they are fully compliant.
Current quantitative Sharia screen
Based on 10-Q figures for the period ended 2026-03-28; calculated 2026-07-12.
47,358 / 205,217
14,079 / 205,217
20,072 / 205,217
233 / 25,168
- Financial
- Pass
- Overall
- Incomplete
Debt is 23.08%, the deliberately overinclusive liquidity bound is 6.86%, receivables plus cash is 9.78%, and the mixed-income upper bound is 0.93%, all within the examined limits. The screened business-revenue percentage remains undisclosed.
- Financial
- Pass
- Overall
- Incomplete
Debt and conservative upper bounds for liquidity and receivables plus cash are below the total-assets limits. The business-activity result remains incomplete.
- Financial
- Pass
- Overall
- Incomplete
Debt and the deliberately conservative liquidity bound are below 33% of total assets, while a screened business-revenue percentage is unavailable. This is a calculation against the SAC ratios, not an official SAC classification of a U.S.-listed security.
- Financial
- Not calculated
- Overall
- Not calculated
A properly licensed and reproducible 24- or 36-month issuer market-cap history is not yet stored, so these methods are not estimated from a current spot price.
Business-activity disclosure
Disney produces and distributes entertainment and sports content and operates parks, resorts, cruises, consumer-products licensing and related businesses. Much of this activity is permissible in isolation, while mature-rated content, sportsbook promotion and odds integration, and alcohol sales create material prohibited-activity concerns.
Limitation: The filing does not isolate revenue from mature-rated programming, sexual or otherwise impermissible content, sportsbook promotion and integrations, alcohol, or other screened activities. Segment totals cannot be treated as prohibited revenue, so the applicable business-revenue percentage remains unproven.
Purification
The 233 mixed interest, investment and other income line is a conservative 0.93% upper bound, not a disclosed interest figure. Potentially prohibited operating revenue is also unsegmented, so this record does not prescribe a fixed purification percentage.
Inputs, assumptions and primary sources
- Interest-bearing debt is the sum of 8,887 of current borrowings and 38,471 of long-term borrowings, reconciling to the filing's 47,358 borrowing total.
- Cash and cash equivalents use the reported 5,682 balance.
- The entire 8,397 investments balance is treated as interest-bearing securities for a deliberately conservative liquidity upper bound, even though the line includes equity-method and other non-debt investments.
- Receivables use the reported current net balance of 14,390.
- Revenue and the 233 interest income, investment income and other aggregate use the same quarter ended March 28, 2026. The entire mixed income line is treated as a conservative non-compliant-income upper bound.
- Disney reports Entertainment, Sports and Experiences revenue, but not revenue from mature content, sportsbook promotion or odds integration, alcohol, or other Sharia-screened subcategories.
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.
What the Numbers Do and Do Not Prove
Debt is 23.08% of total assets. Cash plus the deliberately overinclusive investments bound is 6.86%, receivables plus cash is 9.78%, and the mixed-income upper bound is 0.93%. Those figures pass the examined total-assets limits. They do not resolve the business-activity question because Disney does not disclose screened mature-content, gambling-related, or alcohol revenue.
Broader Qualitative Review
The existing analysis therefore remains important rather than being replaced by ratios. Investors may also weigh labor conditions, animal welfare, privacy and advertising practices, marketing to children, the environmental footprint of parks and cruises, and supply-chain impacts. Scholarly judgments can differ on entertainment content, but explicit sexual content, gambling promotion, and alcohol require direct attention rather than being hidden inside a generic sector label.
Purification
Disney reports $233 million of “interest income, investment income and other,” a mixed line that produces a conservative 0.93% upper bound of quarterly revenue. Because neither interest nor potentially prohibited operating revenue is isolated, ZakatInvest does not publish a fixed purification percentage.
Bottom Line
ZakatInvest preserves its haram qualitative classification for Disney. The current financial ratios pass, but material mature-content, sportsbook-integration, and alcohol concerns remain inside major operating businesses, and the filing cannot prove that screened revenue falls below the relevant threshold. This is ZakatInvest's documented classification—not a claim of universal provider consensus, an investment recommendation, or a fatwa. Investors seeking a binding ruling should apply their chosen methodology with a qualified Sharia adviser.
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