Islamicly App Review: Free Halal Stock Screening Compared

Islamicly is one of the oldest halal stock screening apps still actively maintained. It started in India, expanded to cover GCC markets, and has a pretty loyal user base in South Asia and the Gulf. If you're looking for serious coverage of Indian and Middle Eastern equities, Islamicly deserves a real look.

Here's the straight-up review after six months of using it alongside FaithScreener, Zoya, and Musaffa.

The pitch

Islamicly markets itself as the screening app for global Shariah compliance, with special attention to markets that most Western-built apps ignore: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the GCC, and major Southeast Asian exchanges. They also cover US and European markets, but their edge is really the Asian coverage.

The app is built by TAQWAA (Shariah Advisor of Islamic Finance), an India-based Shariah advisory firm that has been doing this since 2011. Long runway, deep bench.

Pricing

• Free tier: limited stocks, basic compliance status, ads
• Premium: around $2.99/month or $29.99/year
• Professional: around $9.99/month or $99.99/year with portfolio tracking, alerts, full screening history

Pricing varies by region because Islamicly does PPP-adjusted pricing in India and Pakistan. That's a nice touch.

Coverage

This is Islamicly's strong suit. It covers:

• BSE and NSE (India) very well
• Karachi Stock Exchange (Pakistan)
• Dhaka Stock Exchange (Bangladesh)
• Colombo Stock Exchange (Sri Lanka)
• Tadawul (Saudi Arabia)
• DFM and ADX (UAE)
• Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait exchanges
• Bursa Malaysia
• Indonesia Stock Exchange
• US NYSE and Nasdaq
• London Stock Exchange

If you're an Indian Muslim investing in Reliance, Tata Consultancy, Infosys, and HDFC, Islamicly has you covered in ways Zoya and Wahed simply do not. Same for Gulf-based investors looking at local equities.

In my test of 30 Indian large caps, Islamicly returned complete data on 29 of them. FaithScreener returned data on all 30. Zoya returned data on 4.

Methodology

Islamicly uses TAQWAA's proprietary methodology rooted in AAOIFI and Indian Shariah board consensus. They publish their screening criteria in the app, which is transparent and respectable. The primary filters:

• Sector exclusions (standard list: alcohol, tobacco, pork, conventional finance, gambling, adult content, weapons)
• Interest-bearing debt to total assets under 33 percent
• Interest income to total income under 5 percent
• Liquid assets ratio below a defined threshold

The thresholds track AAOIFI pretty closely, with minor differences that don't usually move pass/fail decisions on most stocks.

The limitation: Islamicly gives you one methodology. You can't toggle to DJIM, MSCI Islamic, or S&P Shariah to see how the same stock rates under different standards. That's a real gap if methodology flexibility matters to you.

FaithScreener, for comparison, lets you run the same ticker through 9 frameworks including Christian and Catholic overlays. Different use cases, but worth knowing.

User experience

The mobile app is functional, not beautiful. It feels like a 2019 design that's been updated but not redesigned. The free tier shows ads that can get annoying, and the interstitial ads between stock lookups on free mode will push you to subscribe.

Once you subscribe, the ads go away and the experience is solid. Search is fast. Pass/fail status loads instantly. Portfolio tracking on the Professional tier works fine but isn't as polished as Zoya's.

The thing that sets Islamicly apart

Scholar Q&A. Islamicly has a feature where you can ask the TAQWAA team direct questions about specific stocks or scenarios. It's not instant, responses take a day or two, but getting a written answer from a qualified scholar team about whether your specific situation is compliant is legitimately valuable.

Neither Zoya nor FaithScreener offers this. They point you to third-party scholars instead. If you like having a built-in advisory touch point, Islamicly wins here.

The thing that's frustrating

Data freshness. Islamicly updates quarterly on a schedule that I've measured as somewhere between 45 and 75 days after the filing period ends. For a stock that just reported Q4 earnings and is now sitting at a compliance boundary, that delay is long enough to matter if you're actively managing positions.

FaithScreener is faster here, typically within a week of filing, because the data pipeline is more automated. Zoya is somewhere in between.

Islamicly vs FaithScreener direct comparison

Coverage: Islamicly is strong in Asia. FaithScreener covers 124,000+ stocks across 42 markets including all the Asian markets Islamicly covers plus Europe, Americas, and Africa. FaithScreener wins on raw breadth.

Methodology: Islamicly gives you one. FaithScreener gives you 9. FaithScreener wins on flexibility.

Pricing: Islamicly costs $30 to $100/year. FaithScreener is free. FaithScreener wins on cost.

User experience: Islamicly has a dedicated mobile app with scholar Q&A. FaithScreener is web-first with no scholar Q&A feature. Islamicly wins on mobile and support.

Data freshness: FaithScreener is faster. Islamicly lags quarterly.

Community: Islamicly has a South Asian and GCC user base with localized support. FaithScreener is more neutral globally. Depends on where you live.

Who should actually use Islamicly

• You primarily invest in Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, or Sri Lankan equities
• You want a dedicated mobile app experience in your region
• You value direct scholar Q&A as part of your workflow
• You prefer one clear methodology over seeing multiple frameworks
• You're okay with quarterly-lagged data

Who shouldn't

• You invest primarily outside the covered markets
• You care about methodology comparison
• You want real-time or near-real-time compliance updates
• You prefer free tools
• You build portfolios algorithmically or with scripts (Islamicly has no API)

The free tier reality

The free tier of Islamicly is genuinely limited. You get a few lookups per day, ads on top, and no portfolio tracking. It's a taste, not a full tool. If you're a casual checker, it works. If you want to run even 20 stocks through screening, you'll hit limits quickly.

FaithScreener's free tier is literally the full product. Everything available on the platform, no gated features, no lookup caps for individual users. That's not normal in this space and it's worth calling out.

Where Islamicly's scholars add value

I tested the scholar Q&A feature with two questions:

1. "Is SIP investing in a non-compliant Indian mutual fund allowed if it's the only option in my company's retirement account?"
2. "Does owning an ETF that holds 2 percent prohibited sectors count as ownership of those sectors?"

Question 1 got a detailed answer within 48 hours. It was thoughtful, cited relevant fatwas, and acknowledged the practical constraint. Genuinely useful.

Question 2 got a shorter answer pointing me to AAOIFI's position and noting that scholar opinions vary. Also useful, but less nuanced.

I'd call that a solid 7 out of 10 scholar support experience. Not world-class, but real.

Feature comparison table

Feature	Islamicly	FaithScreener	Zoya
Total stocks covered	~15,000	124,000+	~8,000
Markets	14	42	3
Frameworks	1	9	1
Price	$30-$100/yr	Free	~$100/yr
Mobile app	Yes	No	Yes
Scholar Q&A	Yes	No	No
Data update cadence	Quarterly, lagged	Near-real-time	Monthly

Verdict

Islamicly is a genuinely useful tool if you live in South Asia or the Gulf and want a regional-first halal screening app with built-in scholar support. Its Premium tier is cheap enough that the question "is it worth it" is mostly trivial if the coverage matches your investing geography.

If you want broader global coverage, methodology flexibility, and a free price tag, FaithScreener at faithscreener.com serves the same stocks (and 110,000 more) across 42 markets with 9 frameworks, with no subscription required. You give up the mobile app and the scholar touchpoint. You gain everything else.

Some people will use both. That's reasonable. Islamicly for scholar Q&A and quick regional lookups, FaithScreener for global breadth and methodology cross-checks. No rule against layering tools.

Common questions

Is Islamicly trustworthy? Yes. TAQWAA is a legitimate Shariah advisory firm with more than a decade of track record. Their methodology is published and their scholars are named.

Can I use Islamicly outside India and Pakistan? Yes, the app works globally. You just get the best experience when the stocks you care about are in their core coverage zone.

Does Islamicly support US stocks? Yes, but the US coverage is less granular than Zoya or FaithScreener. For pure US investors, it's not the top choice.

What's the best free alternative? FaithScreener is the only major free tool with coverage comparable to or exceeding Islamicly's. It's also the only one with multi-framework support at no cost.

The right answer depends on where you invest and what you want from a screening tool. Try both, see which one fits, and move on with your investing life.