The Shari’a Board is composed of not more than twenty members to be appointed by the Board of Trustees for a four-year term from among fiqh scholars who represent Shari’a supervisory boards in the Islamic financial institutions that are members of AAOIFI, and Shari’a supervisory boards in central banks.

The powers of the Shari’a Board include, among others, the following:

(1) Achieving harmonization and convergence in the concepts and application among the Shari’a supervisory boards of Islamic financial institutions to avoid contradiction or inconsistency between the fatwas and applications by these institutions, thereby providing a pro-active role for the Shari’a supervisory boards of Islamic financial institutions and central banks.

(2) Helping in the development of Shari’a approved instruments, thereby enabling Islamic financial institutions to cope with the developments taking place in instruments and formulas in fields of finance, investment and other banking services.

(3) Examining any inquiries referred to the Shari’a Board from Islamic financial institutions or from their Shari’a supervisory boards, either to give the Shari’a opinion in matters requiring collective Ijtihad (reasoning), or to settle divergent points of view, or to act as an arbitrator.