Ḥawāla, an Arabic noun which means ‘note of exchange’, ‘transfer’ and ‘change’, hence a transfer of debt or indebtedness, from the root ḥ-w-l meaning ‘to change’ and ‘to transfer’ (al-Farāhīdī, 3/299; Ibn Manẓūr, 11/190; al-Fīrūzābādī, 1/989). In a technical legal sense, ḥawāla is the cession or assignment of a debt to a third party, whereby the financial obligation or liability (dhimma) of a debtor to a particular creditor is transferred to another, so that the latter assumes the debt. This is a definition agreed upon by both Sunni and Shiʿi jurists (al-ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī, Qawāʿid, 2/162…