Shar'ah Audit and Supervision in Shar'ah Governance Framework: Exploratory Study of Islamic Banks in Pakistan

Abstract

Shari'ah governance in Islamic banking institutions is as essential and significant as corporate governance in modern corporate organizations. It consists of arrangements ensuring the compliance of Shari'ah rules and principles in Islamic banking transactions. The objective of this paper is to investigate the Shari'ah audit mechanism and the challenges faced by Islamic banking institutions after the implementation of Shari'ah governance framework issued by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP). Our findings suggest that although Shari'ah audit is considered as a distinctive activity from conventional audit, still more training will be required for external audit firms and employees of IFIs. Our study also concludes that the idea of SBP Shari'ah board is a right step towards the future conflict resolution; however, this governance framework may have certain financial implication for IFIs