Independent annual audit of what a fund did, against what it was certified to do. Including offshore-domiciled structures.
The problem
A fund is certified once, against a mandate, at a point in time. Then it operates for a year, trades, holds cash, takes leverage, receives dividends, meets redemptions, and occasionally holds something it should have divested three weeks earlier.
A Shariah audit is the mechanism that reconciles the two. It is what the fund board relies on, what the trustee expects, and increasingly what institutional investors ask for before they subscribe.
Trading and rebalancing
Positions change; screening status can change with them
Cash and leverage
Balances and any borrowing move through the year
Dividends received
Income from partially non-compliant sources arrives
Redemptions met
Cash calls test the fund's liquidity and compliance together
What we do
Sampling holdings across the period against the applicable screening criteria, including positions held and exited between reporting dates.
Whether the fund operated within its constitutive documents and its stated Shariah parameters.
Treatment of cash balances, any borrowing, and income from partially non-compliant sources.
Whether non-compliant income was identified, quantified and channelled correctly, and never recognised as return to investors.
Whether the manager's own process would have caught a breach before the audit did.
The report the board, trustee, regulator and investors require.
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 a portfolio management system, we go into it. Where there is a custodian feed, we reconcile against it.
Registered Shariah Adviser with the Securities Commission Malaysia and with Labuan Financial Services Authority.
We audit primarily against AAOIFI standards and reconcile with the applicable local regime. A report 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.
As a matter of routine. A board relying on our report gets an assessment independent of the certifying adviser.
A substantial body of work for structures domiciled in the Middle East, the Caribbean and British Overseas Territories.
Best Shariah Advisory in Islamic Asset Management, presented in Jeddah in February 2026.
Auditing against another adviser's pronouncement is ordinary work for us. We audit funds we did not certify as a matter of routine.
How we hold ourselves
We report what we find, including breaches the manager would rather we did not surface. A board relies on the report precisely because it is independent of the manager's own account of the year.
A fund built on an Islamic label still has to be a well-run fund. Sound fundamentals, capable managers, honest disclosure, and a high standard of compliance with local regulation, because that is what protects the investor. Shariah compliance sits on top of that foundation, not in place of it.
The Lifecycle
The mandate is fixed at launch. The audit is the mechanism that checks the fund kept to it, every year it operates.
The constitutive documents and the original Shariah pronouncement set the terms of reference.
Positions held and exited across the period are tested against the applicable screening criteria.
Cash balances, any borrowing, and income from partially non-compliant sources are traced through the period.
Whether non-compliant income was identified, quantified and channelled correctly, and never recognised as investor return.
Whether the manager's own process would have caught a breach before the audit did.
Delivered to the board, the trustee, the regulator and investors.
Independence is the point: we audit funds certified by other advisers as ordinary practice.
Fund audits run on the fund's reporting calendar, typically annually, and are scheduled around the manager's own reporting deadlines to the board and regulator.
Engagements are scoped and priced individually, by fund size, holdings complexity and domicile. Tell us what you are running and we will tell you what it takes.
Evidence
Middle East, Caribbean, British Overseas TerritoriesA substantial body of fund Shariah audit work for structures domiciled offshore, across managers, mandates and asset classes.
Venture capital fundOngoing audit covering both the fund and the portfolio companies it has financed.
Questions
Yes. Independence is the point of an audit, and auditing against another adviser's pronouncement is ordinary work.
Yes, Middle East, Caribbean and British Overseas Territory domiciles are a regular part of our fund audit practice.
Annually, at minimum, aligned to the fund's reporting calendar. Some mandates warrant more frequent sampling, particularly where holdings turn over quickly.
It is reported to the board and trustee with the remediation required, including any purification of income attributable to the breach period. The finding also feeds into the following year's controls testing.
Typically yes, or equivalent data extracts. Holdings testing and cash and leverage testing both depend on transaction-level records across the period, not just the year-end position.
No. A financial audit tests the accounts. A Shariah audit tests whether the fund operated within its Shariah mandate. Funds typically commission both, run by different specialists.
Our audit confirms Shariah compliance against the mandate. It is not an assessment of whether a fund is well-managed, 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 report carries a reference you can check independently.
Book a consultation with our Shariah audit team. We will tell you at the first meeting what the scope looks like.