Islamic Finance Accounting Architecture Director — Participation Banking

The mandate

Murabaha, ijara, mudaraba, wakala, sukuk and profit-sharing investment accounts are documented and approved through separate product routes, yet accounting often begins with conventional-system labels. Asset ownership, agency, purchase undertakings, profit allocation, reserves and non-compliant income are not consistently connected to executed sequences. Product variants consequently produce unexplained differences between Sharia approvals, subledgers and financial statements.

The engagement deliverable is an Islamic Finance Product Accounting Architecture. It will map contractual steps, asset and risk transfer, recognition unit, income pattern, impairment, investment-account attribution, profit equalisation, reserves, charity disposition, presentation and disclosure. The artefact will preserve separate Sharia, legal, risk and accounting decisions while forcing product changes through a shared evidence gate.

Milestone one at week three inventories products and consequence-ranked accounting gaps. Week seven completes product archetypes, evidence standards and decision ownership. A transaction-level reperformance and shadow close complete milestone three in week twelve. At week seventeen, accepted accounting papers, control catalogue, trained owners and an unseen hybrid product case conclude the deliverables.

Acceptance requires Product and Legal to reproduce contractual sequences and actual asset flows; Sharia Governance to confirm approved structures and exceptions; and Finance to reperform sampled recognition, profit allocation and impairment. The Chief Accounting Officer signs only after client teams classify ten unfamiliar variations without consultant-authored conclusions or conventional product-code assumptions.

The client will provide contracts, term sheets, Sharia approvals and minutes, product procedures, asset and cash-flow records, profit-allocation models, investment-account data, subledgers, policies, disclosures, controls and audit findings. Management retains accounting conclusions; the Sharia board retains religious rulings. Legal advice, product approval, religious opinion, pricing, tax advice, system implementation and audit opinion are excluded.

Why this is external work

Product, Sharia and Finance teams each govern a distinct aspect of Islamic instruments, but the evidentiary bridge among approved form, executed substance and accounting treatment is inconsistent. Specialist external architecture can build that bridge without issuing religious rulings, rewriting contracts, approving products or displacing management’s accounting judgement.

What you will own

• Map contractual sequence, asset ownership, agency, risk transfer, cash flows and undertakings for each product archetype.
• Define accounting units, recognition, income, impairment, derecognition, presentation and disclosure by evidenced substance.
• Govern investment-account profit attribution, reserves, displaced commercial risk and non-compliant income disposition interfaces.
• Reconcile product approvals, executed documents, transaction systems, subledgers, ledgers and financial-statement outputs.
• Establish change gates for new variants, sequencing deviations, side arrangements and altered purchase undertakings.
• Exercise a failed asset transfer, early settlement, profit waiver, hybrid agency feature and exception to approved sequence.
• Transfer the architecture after a client-led shadow close and accepted unfamiliar product-variation case set.

Candidate qualifications

• Led Islamic finance accounting across murabaha, ijara, mudaraba, wakala, sukuk or investment-account products.
• Connected contractual sequence and asset-risk transfer with recognition, income, impairment, derecognition and disclosure.
• Governed profit allocation, reserves, displaced commercial risk and non-compliant income across product systems.
• Resolved differences among approved structure, executed transaction, conventional system label and ledger treatment.
• Preserved distinct authority for Sharia rulings, legal interpretation, product approval, management accounting and audit.
• Delivered durable product accounting architectures that bank teams sustained independently through complex launches and transaction exceptions.

Non-negotiables

• The named director must lead Manama product workshops and the final hybrid-structure acceptance exercise.
• Direct Islamic finance technical-accounting experience is required; conventional bank product accounting alone is insufficient.
• No current relationship may involve Sharia-board members, material product counterparties, advisers or external auditors.
• Management owns accounting and the Sharia board owns rulings; legal, religious, product and audit opinions remain excluded.

1. 49 words maximum. Describe an Islamic finance transaction where executed sequence differed from approved product form.
2. 49 words maximum. How did you preserve the boundary between a Sharia ruling and an accounting conclusion?
3. 49 words maximum. Which hybrid product variation would you use to test client ownership of the architecture?