Accounting Regulation and IFRS in Islamic Countries

In Section 2, the review of IFRS adoption in the 57 OIC countries shows that 18 countries do not permit IFRSs. Also, 12 countries opted to require IFRS for all listed companies; eight require IFRS for some, and eight countries permit the use of IFRS. The review identified at least four different approaches ranging from accepting IFRS as suitable for Islamic transactions to insistence on the need for separate Islamic accounting standards and two positions in between.
Some national accounting standard setters believe that having separate accounting standards specifically for Islamic entities would be incompatible with the IFRS convergence while others believe that compatibility would still be maintained. Furthermore, Section 2 discussed six alternative explanations for why Islamic countries might choose to adopt IFRSs and showed that the economic explanation holds as much for Islamic countries as for other countries.
Section 3 discussed the differences between Islamic principles aimed at business activity that promotes social justice and the assumptions of financial economics aimed at allowing the market mechanism to allocate and distribute resources efficiently. In addition, Section 3 showed some
of the implications that these differences have for the definition of the objective of financial reporting, performance measurement, capital maintenance and disclosure of information and how these affect specific accounting requirements for finance transactions. As the objectives
of Islamic accounting and conventional accounting are fundamentally different, performance measurement, capital maintenance and disclosure requirements are likely to be different as well. More research is needed to determine to what extent IFRS can fulfil these requirements or where alternative standards must be developed.