Plans for certified syariah experts in Islamic finance

Leading Islamic finance scholars are preparing the first global certification for syariah experts, seeking to bolster the industry's reputation and make it easier for banks to find qualified advisers, reports Bloomberg (8 Sept 2010).

The International Syariah Research Academy for Islamic Finance in Kuala Lumpur will pick a board of regulators by year-end to issue permits for scholars qualified to sit on syariah boards, said Aznan Hasan, president of the oversight committee. The scholars decide whether financial products meet the religion's precepts, including a ban on interest payments.

"We are worried that people who aren't qualified to be syariah scholars may enter and become members of the advisory boards as the market flourishes. Banks try to search for competent advisers. Sometimes they get the right person, sometimes they get the wrong person," ," Aznan told the news agency an interview in Kuala Lumpur.

The report goes on:

Attempts to set up an organisation with a code of ethics to certify Islamic scholars have been frustrated by differing interpretations of syariah law across the Muslim world, Madzlan Mohamad Hussain, a partner at Zaid Ibrahim & Co, Malaysia's largest law firm, said in an interview.

Scholars are now required to have recognised university degrees before they can act as advisers to banks and companies. The council of scholars at the academy includes Sheikh Nizam Yaquby of Bahrain, Mohammad Daud Bakar of Malaysia and Abdul Sattar Abu Ghuddah of Syria, who were all ranked among the top 10 experts in a 2008 report by the Chicago-based Failaka Advisors LLC, an advisory company that monitors and publishes data on Islamic funds. Yaquby serves on the Islamic boards of 52 institutions, including the New York-based Citigroup Inc and London-based HSBC Holdings plc. Daud advises firms such as the Paris-based BNP Paribas SA, according to the data.

"The whole idea is to further strengthen confidence by making syariah scholars truly professional," Madzlan said, adding that the majority of experts also have full-time careers. "The plan will materialise because there's a need for it."

A shortage of scholars versed in syariah law means they tend to sit on a number of advisory boards simultaneously, which increases the risk of conflicts of interest, according to the Bahrain-based Accounting & Auditing Organisation for Islamic Financial Institutions, or AAOIFI.

"We desperately need an institution that could certify and standardise different Islamic products in the market," Kaleem Iqbal, a senior executive vice-president at Al Baraka Islamic, a unit of the Bahrain-based Albaraka Banking Group, said in an interview yesterday from Islamabad, Pakistan. "The banking community will certainly welcome a common platform with a global mandate."