Shariah review is the regular examination of an Islamic financial institution's activities to confirm that they comply with Shariah and with the decisions of its Sharia supervisory board. It is carried out by an in-house Shariah compliance team, working day to day alongside the business. Reviewers examine new products before launch, check contracts, marketing material and operating procedures, and test samples of completed transactions against the relevant fatwa.
Issues found are reported to management and the scholars, who decide on correction and on whether any income must be given to charity through income purification. The function is the main day-to-day control over Sharia non-compliance risk. It differs from a Shariah audit, which is a periodic and independent assessment that also examines how well the review function itself works. Usage is not uniform: some standards, including older AAOIFI governance standards, use "Shariah review" for work that other frameworks call audit.