Shari’ah Scholars’ Insight on Shari’ah Governance Framework for Islamic Banking Institutions in Pakistan

Abstract

One of the major reasons behind the financial crises generally and the 2008 crises especially, was the poor corporate governance in financial institutions. For ensuring good Islamic corporate governance as well as Shari’ah compliant environment in Islamic banking institutions (IBIs), Shari’ah governance framework (SGF) was developed in many countries including Pakistan. This study is conducted to evaluate the SGF, its implementation level, and the challenges facing the IBIs in the implementation of the SGF in Pakistan. For this purpose, the insight of the Shari’ah scholars is taken on SGF by following the qualitative research approach with semi-structured interviews of the scholars. The respondents included Shari’ah Board’s (SB) members and Incharges of Shari’ah Compliance Department (SCD) in various IBIs in Pakistan. The researchers used Nvivo12 software for the analysis of the interviews data. The study discovered some important issues faced by Islamic banks in the implementation of SGF. It is evident from the research that there are shortcomings and weaknesses in the implementation of Shari’ah governance framework which requires improvements such as interpretation and quantification of the provisions of the SGF, approval from Shari’ah Board (SB) for all minute requirements, reporting line issues, and communication gap between the board of directors (BODs) and the members of SB. This research work suggests that the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) should revisit the SGF in the light of the present study and further improve its provisions as well ensure the implementation of SGF in true letter and spirit.