The Bahrain Institute of Banking and Finance (BIBF) has
announced the release of a report calling for an independent audit of sharia
compliance in Islamic finance at the Global Islamic Economy Summit in Dubai,
which took place this week.
“Ensuring and maintaining the integrity of the sharia is
paramount to sustaining future confidence and growth in the Islamic finance
sector,” Omar Shaikh, advisory board member at UKIFC, said. “By
providing an additional check, external sharia audit will play an important
role towards providing reassurance to scholars, financial institutions and
customers.”
The “External Shariah
Audit Report” was unveiled by the Islamic
Finance Council U.K. (UKIFC) and International Shariah Research Academy for
Islamic Finance (ISRA) after the organizations consulted with more than 35
practitioners across four countries.
“Various initiatives are being taken in different
jurisdictions to ensure compliance and maintain the credibility of Islamic
finance among stakeholders,” Dr. Akram Laldin,
executive director of ISRA. “External sharia audit
provides additional assurance — and it does so with greater independence than
others.”
External sharia auditing means that
each Islamic financial institution will need to undergo annual auditing by an
independent party.
“We strongly believe that the next step in creating
robustness in this industry and in safeguarding all relevant stakeholders is an
appropriate external sharia audit framework — which many central banks,
including the Central Bank of Bahrain, are considering introducing in the near
future,” Dr. Ahmed AlShaikh, deputy director of the Bahrain Institute of Banking and Finance, said.
