Purpose

This study aims to measure levels of Sharīʿah-compliance in Islamic financial institutions (IFIs) financial reporting standards with the objective to investigate the application of Maqāsid ul-Sharīʿah as a compliance measure reflected in the reporting standards.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper adopts Maqāsid ul-Sharīʿah’s model to measure levels of Sharīʿah-compliance amongst three available financial reporting frameworks and presentation standards; international financial reporting standards (IFRS), accounting and auditing organization for Islamic financial institutions (AAOIFI), Pernyataan Standar Akuntansi Keuangan (PSAK) Syariah. NVivo 10 software is used in this paper to help measure quantitatively the compliance level of each standard.

Findings

The findings suggest that the use of Maqāsid ul-Sharīʿah leads to a more complete understanding of how the meaning of Sharīʿah and its values can be integrated into the demands of financial reporting, and hence, offering greater convergence between ethics and accounting regulations amongst IFIs.

Originality/value

It documents different context of content analysis that takes examples of Islamic financial reporting studies and uses both classical and contemporary theoretical bases. The main outputs are designed for standard setters and policymakers with expectation for Sharīʿah objectives (i.e. Maqāsid ul-Sharīʿah), to be embedded in the preparation of financial reporting standards for the IFIs. Hence, they will be able to show their full accountability then gain better trust from the stakeholders.