✦ Islamic Software Licenses

How to apply an ISL license

Version 1.0 · July 2026

1. Choose the variant

If you are unsure, the full list of licenses compares all fourteen, and the choosing-a-license guide walks through the decision step by step. In short, for software: ISL-P for maximum adoption, ISL-C for whole-program copyleft that keeps derivatives endowed to the community, ISL-LC for a weaker, file-level copyleft that still lets you link or combine with differently-licensed code, ISL-NETC for AGPL-style copyleft that also covers network/SaaS use, ISL-R for source transparency without granting modification or redistribution, ISL-EULA for closed-source products, and ISL-NC for software shared for non-commercial use only. For non-software creative works: ISL-CW and ISL-CW-NC require attribution only (commercial and non-commercial respectively), ISL-CW-SA and ISL-CW-NC-SA add a share-alike requirement on adaptations, ISL-CW-ND and ISL-CW-NC-ND permit sharing the unmodified work only, and ISL-CW-0 is the public-domain-style creative-works variant with no attribution requirement.

2. Add the license file

Download the license text and place it, verbatim and unmodified, at the root of your repository as LICENSE.md (or LICENSE). Fill in nothing for ISL-P, ISL-C, and ISL-R except the copyright line; ISL-EULA has bracketed placeholders for your product name, licensor identity, and jurisdiction.

Copyright (c) 2026 [YOUR NAME]

3. Declare it in your project metadata

The ISL licenses are not on the SPDX license list, so use SPDX LicenseRef syntax. In package.json:

{
  "license": "SEE LICENSE IN LICENSE.md"
}

In SPDX-aware tooling and SBOMs:

LicenseRef-ISL-P-1.0
LicenseRef-ISL-C-1.0
LicenseRef-ISL-LC-1.0
LicenseRef-ISL-NETC-1.0
LicenseRef-ISL-R-1.0
LicenseRef-ISL-EULA-1.0
LicenseRef-ISL-NC-1.0
LicenseRef-ISL-CW-1.0
LicenseRef-ISL-CW-NC-1.0
LicenseRef-ISL-CW-SA-1.0
LicenseRef-ISL-CW-NC-SA-1.0
LicenseRef-ISL-CW-ND-1.0
LicenseRef-ISL-CW-NC-ND-1.0
LicenseRef-ISL-CW-0-1.0

4. Add a header to your source files

A short header in each file makes the licensing unambiguous even when files travel without the repository. This applies to every software variant — ISL-P, ISL-C, ISL-LC, ISL-NETC, ISL-R, ISL-NC, and ISL-EULA — just swap in the matching name and SPDX identifier:

// Copyright (c) 2026 [YOUR NAME]
// SPDX-License-Identifier: LicenseRef-ISL-C-1.0
// Licensed under the Islamic Software License - Copyleft (ISL-C) v1.0.
// This software may not be used for the activities prohibited in
// Sections 4 and 5 of the License. Full text: [link to LICENSE.md]

5. State it in your README

## License

This project is licensed under the Islamic Software License - Permissive
(ISL-P) v1.0 — a source-available, ethically restricted license rooted in
Islamic principles. It is not an OSI-approved open-source license.
See [LICENSE.md](LICENSE.md) for the full text, including the ethical
use restrictions in Sections 4 and 5.

6. For the Creative Works variants: applying to non-software works

ISL-CW, ISL-CW-NC, ISL-CW-SA, ISL-CW-NC-SA, ISL-CW-ND, ISL-CW-NC-ND, and ISL-CW-0 license non-software creative works — text, art, media, courseware — so the source-file-header step above does not apply. Instead, place the license file at the root of the work's repository or archive as LICENSE.md (or LICENSE), and — for every variant except ISL-CW-0, which does not require attribution — add a visible credit or colophon line near the work itself — on the copyright page, in the closing credits, in a README alongside the files, or in an "about" or "colophon" section — since attribution is required and the work may travel without its enclosing folder:

Licensed under the Islamic Creative Works License (ISL-CW) v1.0
— see https://islamiclicense.org/isl-cw/

For the other variants, use the same pattern with the matching name and URL — https://islamiclicense.org/isl-cw-nc/, https://islamiclicense.org/isl-cw-sa/, https://islamiclicense.org/isl-cw-nc-sa/, https://islamiclicense.org/isl-cw-nd/, https://islamiclicense.org/isl-cw-nc-nd/, or (with no credit line required) https://islamiclicense.org/isl-cw-0/. This mirrors how Creative Commons recommends a short credit line wherever an attribution-required work is displayed or distributed.

7. For ISL-EULA: complete the template

Replace every bracketed placeholder — [PRODUCT NAME], [LICENSOR], [JURISDICTION], and the commercial terms — before presenting the EULA to end users. Present it at or before installation or first use, and record acceptance. Have counsel review the completed document; the liability and fee provisions in particular must match your actual pricing model.

For AI agents

Not sure which license to pick, or want help applying one without reading every section yourself? You don't need to figure it out alone: paste a license's URL — or https://islamiclicense.org/llms.txt itself — into your own AI assistant or chatbot and ask it to help you choose the right variant or apply it to your project. The texts are plain, structured Markdown at stable URLs, so any general-purpose LLM can read them directly and reason about the differences between variants.

Coding agents can apply an ISL license without human back-and-forth. Machine-readable instructions live at /llms.txt, and every license's raw text is available at a stable URL of the form https://islamiclicense.org/isl-X/LICENSE.md (substitute the variant slug — p, c, lc, netc, r, eula, nc, cw, cw-nc, cw-sa, cw-nc-sa, cw-nd, cw-nc-nd, or cw-0 — for X). An agent should fetch that file, save it verbatim as LICENSE.md at the project root, and follow the same steps described above: set the copyright line, add SPDX headers to source files, and note the license in the README.

The prompt below is a copyable template for a coding agent — adjust the variant, name, and year as needed:

Apply the Islamic Software License - Permissive to this project: fetch
https://islamiclicense.org/isl-p/LICENSE.md and save it verbatim as
LICENSE.md in the repository root, set the copyright line to [NAME],
[YEAR], and add SPDX-License-Identifier: LicenseRef-ISL-P-1.0 headers
to the source files.

Notice generator

Fill in the fields below to generate a ready-to-paste license notice and a source file header. This runs entirely in your browser; nothing is sent anywhere.

License notice

Source file header

Adapt the comment marker (//) to your language.

A final word

Applying an ISL license is a statement of values, not a ruling on your software. The licenses have not yet been certified by a Shariah board or tested in court. For projects of consequence, seek review from a qualified scholar and a lawyer in your jurisdiction — and if either finds fault in these texts, tell us, so the next version can be better.