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UAE Islamic finance is not a single regulatory system. Onshore institutions answer to the Central Bank and, on Shari’ah questions, to the Higher Shari’ah Authority. Sukuk, as securities, answer to the Capital Market Authority. The DIFC runs its own regime through the DFSA and ADGM its own through the FSRA — parallel jurisdictions with separate statutes, rulebooks and supervisors.

The most expensive mistake in this field is importing a requirement from one regime into another: assuming a DFSA Shari’a Supervisory Board satisfies the Central Bank’s ISSC requirement, or that a Capital Market Authority approval reaches a DIFC issuance. The first question any competent adviser asks is which regime the institution and the instrument each sit in — the answers can differ for the same transaction.

The HSA is the apex Shari’ah body attached to the Central Bank. It issues resolutions and fatwas for the sector, gives opinions on regulatory rules and on sovereign sukuk issuances, and approves Shari’ah-compliant monetary instruments. Its current legal basis is Article 24 of Federal Decree-Law No. 6 of 2025 — issued 8 September 2025, Official Gazette No. 807 of 15 September 2025, effective 16 September 2025.

The original basis was Article 17 of Federal Decree-Law No. 14 of 2018, now marked repealed in the Central Bank Rulebook — and almost all commentary still cites it. That is more than a pedantic footnote: a memorandum citing a repealed article for the most fundamental proposition in the field was probably written against the old law throughout. Not established on the public record: the 2025 law’s repealing provision or its own entry-into-force article.

Article 24(8) of Federal Decree-Law No. 6 of 2025 makes HSA resolutions and fatwas binding on internal Shari’ah supervisory committees and on Islamic financial institutions. Article 75 makes an institution’s own ISSC fatwas binding on it, but only where they do not conflict with HSA resolutions and fatwas. Article 76, on the ISSC’s report, states that the HSA’s opinion shall be binding and final.

Read together, those provisions set a strict ceiling rather than a negotiation. Management cannot overrule its own ISSC. The ISSC cannot depart from the HSA. And where the two Shari’ah levels disagree, Article 75 sends the disagreement to the HSA for a final binding determination. Proceeding on a contested internal view while that escalation is unresolved is regulatory risk, not commercial risk.

Article 75 requires every Islamic financial institution to establish an independent Internal Shari’ah Supervision Committee of specialists competent to issue Islamic financial fatwas. Its remit is total rather than sampled: it oversees all of the institution’s business, products, services and contracts — a different obligation from approving new products at launch.

The independence rules are structural. Members may not hold executive positions at the institution, may not provide outside services to it, and may not hold shares or interests in it. These are not disclose-and-manage rules — the conflicts must be absent, which narrows the eligible pool. The Shari’ah Governance Standard adds composition requirements: at least five members, at least one third of them Emirati.

Article 75 also requires two separate internal divisions — internal Shari’ah control and internal Shari’ah audit. They are separated on purpose. Control sits within the operating process, checking compliance as business is written; audit tests that process independently after the fact. A single combined Shari’ah function, however well staffed, does not answer the requirement as drafted.

The appointment mechanism is the detail that catches institutions out. Each divisional head must be approved by the institution’s board, by the ISSC, and by the Higher Shari’ah Authority — three approvals for one internal appointment, one from the regulator. Hiring plans built on a normal internal cycle will not reflect that, and a vacancy in either role is a visible governance gap.

The Shari’ah Governance Standard, circular reference STA-LFI-GOV-2020 and effective 21 April 2020, is in force and applies. But the Central Bank Rulebook still states its legal basis as the 2018 Central Bank law — the same law whose HSA article is marked repealed. The Standard is not thereby invalid; regulatory instruments routinely survive the replacement of their enabling statute.

What it does demonstrate is that a citation found in an official rulebook is not automatically a current citation. For anyone building a compliance file, a prospectus or a board paper, the rule is to verify the enabling provision against the statute itself rather than inheriting it from a secondary source, including an official one.

Article 1 of Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2025 on the Regulation of the Capital Market defines Securities and lists Sukuk, described as Islamic bonds, as item (4) among eleven categories. Sukuk are not a parallel class outside securities regulation; they are inside the definition by name. Articles 28 to 30 then govern offering local and foreign securities by public or private subscription, require CMA approval before issuance, impose prospectus requirements with liability attached, and deal with listing.

The carve-outs matter as much as the rule. Article 2(2) exempts securities issued by federal or local governments or wholly owned entities — unless publicly offered or listed, when the exemption falls away. Article 2(4) excludes Central Bank licensed activities, its depository and clearing systems, Central Bank licensed persons save for issuances under Article 3, and the Financial Free Zones. Whether a sukuk is inside or outside is a real analysis.

The regulator states that Federal Decree-Law No. 32 of 2025 establishing the Authority and Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2025 on the capital market entered into effect on 1 January 2026, and that the Securities and Commodities Authority is renamed the Capital Market Authority. Documents, policies and prospectuses naming the SCA as the live regulator are dated at best.

The same source describes the Authority gaining oversight of new regulated financial activities, management of the investor and settlement guarantee funds, authority over systemically important persons and resolution mechanisms, and power to pursue conciliation before criminal proceedings. Not established here: the new law’s repeal of Federal Law No. 4 of 2000 or its own entry-into-force article, so confirm those with a lawyer.

The DFSA regulates Islamic financial business through an endorsement model: a firm holding itself out as conducting it needs a special endorsement on its licence, and may be either wholly Islamic or run an Islamic window inside a conventional business. The framework runs through a Law Regulating Islamic Financial Business, the DFSA Rulebook’s Islamic Finance Rules module covering Shari’a governance systems and controls, the capital treatment of Islamic contracts at Chapter 5 and disclosure, the Prudential Insurance Business module for Takaful, and the Collective Investment Rules for Islamic funds.

Substantive requirements confirmed here include a Shari’a Supervisory Board of at least three competent scholars, Shari’a reviews and internal audit, and AAOIFI accounting standards. One deliberate omission: this page gives no number for the Law Regulating Islamic Financial Business. The number circulating in secondary commentary could not be confirmed on any DIFC or DFSA source, so the law is named without one.

ADGM’s Financial Services Regulatory Authority operates its own Islamic Finance Rules module under the Financial Services and Markets Regulations. It is a distinct regime from the DFSA’s, despite the similar module name, and from the onshore Central Bank framework. A firm authorised in one does not carry that authorisation into another.

Within the ADGM module, IFR 6.2 governs the Shari’a Supervisory Board for an Islamic Fund. For a manager planning an Islamic fund there, that is the provision the fund’s Shari’a governance has to be built against, and it should be read in its current form with a lawyer — rulebook modules are amended more often than statutes.