The next book in this list is ‘Standards Abstracted’ published by the Shariah Board Advisory Department of Bank Albilad (BAB). BAB is an Islamic bank established in KSA which is well known for having a strong Shariah compliance governance culture. The Shariah board of BAB consists of prominent Shariah scholars.

For the purpose of this book, the Shariah department of BAB together with the Shariah board have extracted standards (rules) from the longer decisions of the Shariah board, which were issued since the inception of the Bank until 2010. The fact that the book only includes these standards makes it a good resource for anyone involved in Islamic finance documentation or product development as they would be easily able to look up these standards without necessarily having to refer to a much longer Shariah board decision, therefore saving time. Furthermore, what makes it easier to look up these standards, is the fact that the book has been well arranged into various relevant sections & sub-sections based on the various products and services offered by the bank. Even for those who are not involved in any kind of documentation or product development, the book is a good introduction to applied Shariah principles in a contemporary financial context.

As mentioned previously, the book is based on the Shariah board decisions of BAB and therefore in some cases may differ to the Shariah board decisions of other banks or even the AAOIFI Shariah standards, but this does not take away from the fact that the book is an excellent resource for anyone involved or interested in Islamic finance.

The book is available in Arabic & English (translation) from the BAB website from the following link:

https://www.bankalbilad.com/ar/about/sharia/Pages/publications.aspx

To read the previous post (#4) of this series, please click the link below:

Islamic Economics/Finance Reading List (#4) – ISRA Compendium For Islamic Financial Terms (Arabic-English) | RIZQONOMICS

To read the next post (#6) in this series, please click the link below:

Islamic Economics/Finance Reading List (#6) – فقه المعاملات المالية المعاصرة | RIZQONOMICS