Quick Verdict
ZakatInvest classifies Meta (META) as doubtful. Its March 31, 2026 financial ratios pass the examined total-assets methods, but Meta does not disclose revenue from screened advertiser categories or objectionable platform content well enough to complete the business-activity test. That disclosure gap—not a failed debt or liquidity ratio—is the reason for the cautious verdict.
Meta's Business Model
For the quarter ended March 31, 2026, Meta reported $56.31 billion of revenue. Advertising generated $55.02 billion, or 97.71%. Family of Apps other revenue was $885 million and included paid WhatsApp messaging and Meta Verified subscriptions, while Reality Labs generated $402 million from virtual- and augmented-reality hardware, software, and content.
Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, business messaging, and immersive hardware are neutral-purpose technologies in principle. The core Sharia question is how to treat platform revenue connected to screened advertisements, content, commerce, and downstream use.
Financial Screening
The calculation below uses Meta's latest available Form 10-Q as of this review, keeps every input in one reporting period, and links to Meta's official filing at the SEC. Market-cap methods remain uncalculated until the required historical average series is stored. Meta does not separately present finance-lease liabilities in this quarterly filing, so that limitation is disclosed in the record instead of being replaced with an asset-balance estimate.
Current quantitative Sharia screen
Based on 10-Q figures for the period ended 2026-03-31; calculated 2026-07-12.
58,748 / 395,250
84,282 / 395,250
48,321 / 395,250
744 / 56,311
- Financial
- Pass
- Overall
- Incomplete
Reported debt, conservatively defined liquidity, receivables-plus-cash, and disclosed interest income pass the published financial limits. The prohibited business-revenue percentage remains undisclosed. Finance-lease liabilities are not separately presented, but a deliberately overinclusive debt bound that adds every accrued and other liability still remains below the debt limit.
- Financial
- Pass
- Overall
- Incomplete
Reported debt, cash plus identifiable interest-bearing securities, and receivables plus cash are below the applicable total-assets thresholds. The business-activity result remains incomplete.
- Financial
- Pass
- Overall
- Incomplete
Identifiable conventional cash and interest-bearing instruments and reported interest-bearing debt are below 33% of total assets. 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
Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, business messaging, communications software, and virtual- and augmented-reality hardware are neutral-purpose technologies in principle. Advertising represented 97.71% of quarterly revenue and requires category-level screening evidence.
Limitation: Meta does not separately disclose revenue from alcohol, gambling, conventional finance, dating, objectionable content, or other screened advertiser categories. It also combines paid messaging, Meta Verified subscriptions, commerce, and other Family of Apps revenue. Neither all advertising nor an invented fraction can serve as a defensible prohibited-revenue numerator.
Purification
Disclosed interest income was 1.32% of quarterly revenue. Meta pays a quarterly cash dividend, but potentially non-compliant advertising and operating revenue is not separately disclosed, so this record does not prescribe a fixed purification percentage.
Inputs, assumptions and primary sources
- Interest-bearing debt uses the reported 58,748 carrying amount of fixed-rate senior unsecured notes. The quarterly filing does not separately present finance-lease liabilities; they may be included in other liabilities, and this limitation is disclosed rather than estimated from the finance-lease asset balance. Even adding all 31,013 of accrued and other current liabilities and all 3,612 of other liabilities as a deliberately overinclusive upper bound would produce 23.62% debt to assets, below the examined limits.
- Cash and cash equivalents conservatively include the reported unrestricted 23,426 plus 7,425 of restricted cash equivalents. Including restricted amounts makes the upper-limit liquidity and receivables calculations more cautious.
- Interest-bearing securities use the 53,431 of identified marketable U.S. government, agency, and corporate debt securities and exclude 4,323 of marketable equity securities.
- Accounts receivable is the reported net balance of 17,470.
- Revenue and disclosed interest income use the same three-month period ended March 31, 2026.
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.
Passing the mechanical financial ratios does not prove that screened advertising or content revenue is below 5%. Meta does not publish the required category-level numerator, so the overall methodology results remain incomplete.
The Advertising Question
The debate comes down to facilitation and attribution: when Meta displays an advertisement for a screened product or service, should the resulting fee be treated as directly non-compliant revenue, and how should it be measured within an automated auction and diversified advertiser base?
Meta maintains advertising standards that prohibit some products and restrict others by location, age, authorization, or content. That does not establish a zero screened-revenue figure, and the filing does not disclose revenue by those policy categories. It is therefore not defensible to label all advertising prohibited or to assume an undocumented fraction passes 5%.
Scholars and screening providers can reasonably differ in how they treat a platform's responsibility, proximity to the advertiser, enforcement controls, and revenue attribution. ZakatInvest keeps the result doubtful because public evidence cannot complete the calculation.
Content Concerns Beyond Advertising
Facebook and Instagram host and recommend mixed user-generated content, including material a stricter Muslim investor may reject. Meta's ranking and generative-AI systems can influence what receives attention and monetization, making moderation, youth safety, privacy, surveillance, misinformation, bias, mental health, and downstream harms part of the qualitative analysis.
Reality Labs and Emerging Products
Reality Labs sells Quest devices, AI glasses, software, and content. Hardware and communications technology are generally permissible, while games, apps, immersive social spaces, and content still require product-level review. The segment's $402 million quarterly revenue should not be labeled wholesale as either permissible or prohibited.
How Methodologies Can Differ
The displayed calculations apply published total-assets methods to one current filing. Other providers may use average-market-cap denominators, proprietary activity classifications, different evidence dates, or their own view of platform facilitation. Index and fund holdings change at rebalances, so historical inclusion or exclusion is not permanent certification.
Purification
Meta disclosed $744 million of interest income, equal to 1.32% of quarterly revenue, and paid $1.35 billion of dividends and dividend equivalents during the quarter. Potentially non-compliant advertising and operating revenue is not separately disclosed, so the interest ratio is not presented as a complete or prescribed purification rate. Apply the rules of the methodology and qualified scholar you follow rather than using a fixed percentage invented from consolidated categories.
Bottom Line
ZakatInvest keeps Meta at doubtful. Its current total-assets financial screens pass, and its communications, hardware, and software technologies are not inherently prohibited. The unresolved issue is the business-activity numerator: Meta does not separately disclose enough screened advertiser, content, commerce, messaging, or subscription revenue to prove a current 5% activity result. Conservative investors may avoid the stock, while anyone seeking a binding ruling should take the current evidence to a qualified Sharia adviser.
Use our free halal checker to screen META and thousands of other stocks.
Open Halal Checker →