Shariah RFP M3 study plan

Explain the four foundational prohibitions - riba, gharar, maysir and haram subject matter - and give two concrete transaction examples of each.

Distinguish the profit-and-loss-sharing contracts (mudaraba, musharaka) from the exchange contracts (murabaha, ijara, salam, istisna) and state where Shariah risk arises in each.

Summarise the maqasid al-Shariah objectives and map three of them to specific investment policy choices an adviser would actually make.

Describe how zakat applies to cash, listed equities, sukuk and gold so later portfolio and client work rests on a correct base.

Compare the roles of AAOIFI Shariah Standards, IFSB standards and national regulators, and state which body governs accounting, prudential and product-approval matters respectively.

Describe the Shariah Supervisory Board's duties - fatwa issuance, annual Shariah audit, remediation of non-compliance and independence expectations - and explain why board composition matters to investors.

Outline the full Shariah governance chain of an Islamic fund from screening policy through purification to investor disclosure and annual review.

Contrast how GCC, Malaysian and European jurisdictions differ in what a product may call itself and which approvals are required.

Apply business-activity screens across the standard excluded sectors and defend borderline verdicts such as hotels serving alcohol, supermarkets with pork sales, defence contractors and mixed-revenue media.

Compute the core financial ratios - interest-bearing debt to total assets, interest income to revenue and illiquid assets to total assets - for five listed companies from their published statements.

Compare AAOIFI, MSCI Islamic and Dow Jones Islamic Market threshold sets and identify at least three cases where a company passes one methodology and fails another.

Calculate dividend purification per share and for a whole holding, and explain how the rate is derived and disclosed.

Differentiate sukuk structures - ijara, murabaha, wakala, mudaraba, musharaka and hybrid - by underlying asset, cash-flow pattern and whether they may trade above or below par.

Evaluate Shariah-compliant substitutes for conventional cash and fixed income: Islamic money-market placements, commodity murabaha, takaful, Islamic REITs and gold, noting liquidity and price-risk limits of each.

Explain why conventional derivatives, short selling and interest-based hedging are excluded, and identify the permitted risk-management alternatives such as wa'd, arboun and salam.

Flag sukuk features that create Shariah concern - asset-backed versus asset-based structuring, purchase undertakings, guarantees and true-sale questions - and state the investor consequence.

Convert screening output into an investable universe and write rebalancing rules that trigger when a holding's ratios drift beyond threshold.

Construct a model portfolio under Shariah constraints with sector caps, liquidity limits and an equity-to-sukuk split matched to a stated risk profile.

Explain the trade-offs between full replication and sampling when tracking an Islamic index, and the tracking-error and cost consequences of each.

Size and monitor the cash buffer and purification reserve so the portfolio stays both liquid and Shariah-clean between reviews.

Distinguish Shariah-specific risks - screening drift, purification drag, sukuk structure risk, Shariah non-compliance risk - from ordinary market, credit and liquidity risk, and say how each is monitored.

Compute and interpret time-weighted and money-weighted returns and explain why GIPS-style reporting discipline matters for Islamic funds with purification adjustments.

Run an attribution that separates sector allocation, security selection and currency effects from purification drag, and interpret the residual.

Select and justify a benchmark - Islamic index versus adjusted conventional index - for a given mandate and note the biases each introduces.

Design a client profiling questionnaire that captures strength of Shariah preference, purification tolerance, zakat obligations, liquidity needs and specific prohibited-sector exclusions.

Draft a Shariah-compliant investment policy statement covering objectives, constraints, screening policy, purification treatment, zakat arrangements, review cycle and reliance on the client's own Shariah board.

Explain suitability and disclosure duties, including what must be recorded when a client insists on a borderline or non-compliant exposure and who signs off.

Identify record-keeping and conflict-of-interest obligations for Shariah-constrained advice, including related-party and Shariah-board relationships.

Prepare clear answers to the client questions that recur most: zakat on a fluctuating portfolio, how purification is paid out, and waqf or charitable structuring.

Synthesise all four domains into a single advice workflow running from onboarding and profiling through screening, construction, reporting and annual Shariah review.

Diagnose weak areas from mock results and re-drill the ten lowest-scoring topics with fresh worked examples.

Practise calculation items under time pressure: financial ratios, purification, zakat, returns and attribution.

Review the recurring exam traps: borderline-sector reasoning, asset-based versus asset-backed sukuk, benchmark choice and documentation gaps.