Halal certification stops at the product. We assess and remediate the business, its financing, its contracts, its people, its reserves and its zakat.
The problem
Halal certification answers one question: is this product permissible? It says nothing about how the business that made it is financed, how its people are paid, where its reserves sit, or whether its zakat is settled. A company can hold halal certification on every product line and still run on interest-bearing debt, a conventional provident fund and an unpaid zakat obligation.
We do not certify products as halal. That is the certification bodies' work and they do it well. Ours begins where theirs ends. We assess, remediate and certify the business itself: its financing, its contracts, its HR and payroll, its accounts and reserves, its provident fund, its zakat. A halal product made by a halal business is the whole claim. Most companies only have half of it.
Financing
Interest-bearing debt and facilities
HR and payroll
Benefit structures and staff financing
Provident fund
Conventional, sitting untouched
Zakat
Settled, or quietly unpaid
What we do
The whole enterprise reviewed for Shariah non-compliance, function by function, with findings ranked by materiality.
The company's own borrowing, facilities, deposits and treasury arrangements, and the path to replacing what cannot stand.
Employment terms, benefit structures, insurance arrangements and staff financing schemes.
How the fund is constituted, where it is invested, and what the employee's entitlement actually is.
Where surplus sits, what it earns, and how non-compliant income is identified and purified.
Base determination, calculation and disbursement, cross-linked to our zakat practice.
Advisory on the business practices around a halal operation. We advise on compliance; we do not issue halal certification.
A sequenced plan, because no company changes its financing, its payroll and its provident fund in the same quarter.
Why ADL
Our team pairs certified Muftis holding AAOIFI qualifications with people who understand code, systems and product architecture. We hold Malaysia Digital Status from the Malaysian Digital Economy Corporation, a technology credential, held by a Shariah advisory firm. Where there is an app, we go into it. Where there is a core banking system, we review the configuration.
Registered Shariah Adviser with the Securities Commission Malaysia and with Labuan Financial Services Authority.
We work primarily against AAOIFI standards and reconcile with the applicable local regime. An opinion grounded in AAOIFI travels across borders.
Beyond applying Islamic finance standards, our team has been commissioned by a standard-setting body: research towards a governance standard, participation in the drafting of a preliminary standard, and a series of training assignments.
Auditing against another adviser's pronouncement is ordinary work for us, as is being audited by another firm. Independence is the point of the exercise.
We work in jurisdictions with mature Islamic finance regulation and in markets with none at all, where the structure has to satisfy Shariah while operating entirely within a conventional rulebook.
Best Shariah Advisory in Islamic Asset Management, presented in Jeddah in February 2026.
Members of our team hold Shariah board and committee seats across the institutions we serve, so our advisory work is informed by governance experience, not only by external review.
How we hold ourselves
Our measure of a good year is not only revenue. It is whether we helped one more business get to halal. That is why we will take a call from a founder at ideation stage, and why our pricing bends to what a client can actually carry. We would rather a small platform get its structure right at the start than be priced out and get it wrong at scale.
A business built on an Islamic label still has to be a good business. Sound fundamentals, capable people, honest disclosure, and a high standard of compliance with local regulation, because that is what protects the customer and the investor. Shariah compliance sits on top of that foundation. It is not a substitute for it, and we will say so if we see it being treated as one.
The Lifecycle
Compliance is a state you maintain rather than a certificate you obtain, and the audit cycle is how you maintain it.
We understand the business, its financing and its structure before we quote.
Scope, timeline and fee agreed, agreement signed.
The deep stage: financing, HR and payroll, provident funds, accounts and reserves, and zakat, function by function.
Findings returned and worked through with your finance, HR and leadership teams; findings ranked by materiality.
Issued by a certified Mufti.
Issued under a reference any counterparty can verify independently.
For a corporate the cycle runs for as long as the business operates: the financing, payroll and reserves are re-tested every year, and every time the structure changes.
We commit to two to four weeks for a first pronouncement. In practice it often runs longer, and in our experience the reason is the round trip rather than the review. We raise amendments, and your product and engineering teams need time to work through them. We would rather set that expectation now than surprise you in week three.
Engagements are scoped and priced individually. We have worked with large corporates across pharmaceutical, healthcare and other sectors, in markets with and without an established Islamic finance sector. One size does not fit all. Tell us what you are building and we will tell you what it takes.
Evidence
Large corporates (South Asia)End-to-end assessment across pharmaceutical, healthcare and other sectors, analysis of where Shariah non-compliance sits, and advice on bringing compliance into HR, accounts, finance, provident funds and zakat calculation.
Questions
No. Product halal certification is issued by accredited certification bodies and that is properly their work. We advise on and certify the Shariah compliance of the business, financing, contracts, HR, accounts, provident funds and zakat. The two are complementary, and most companies that hold the first have never examined the second.
Usually the financing first, a conventional facility or overdraft that nobody thought of as a Shariah question because it sits with the finance team rather than with production. After that, the provident fund, and then the treatment of surplus cash.
Often, eventually. But not first and not all at once. The output is a sequenced roadmap, because no company changes its financing, its payroll and its provident fund in the same quarter.
Yes, and a good deal of our corporate work is in exactly that position. What is available locally shapes the sequence, not whether it can be done.
Our certification confirms Shariah compliance. It is not an assessment of whether a business is viable, whether its financials are sound, or whether the people running it can execute. Look at both questions, and do your own due diligence on the second. Every ADL certificate carries a reference you can check independently.
Book a consultation. We will tell you at the first meeting where compliance likely stands and what a sequenced roadmap would look like.