Understanding Shariah Compliance in the Professional Practice of Islamic Bank Financial Managers

Abstract

Islamic finance represents an ethical framework that integrates financial performance with spiritual accountability, emphasizing justice, trustworthiness, and social welfare as defined by maqashid al-shariah. Within this discipline, financial managers often face a dual challenge balancing institutional profitability with personal adherence to Shariah principles in decision-making. Despite significant theoretical and regulatory developments, little is known about how these professionals experience and interpret Shariah compliance under profit pressures. Using an interpretative phenomenological approach (IPA), this study explores the lived experiences of Islamic financial managers to uncover how ethical and spiritual reasoning shape professional judgment. The study involved 12 financial managers from four major Islamic banks in Indonesia, selected through purposive sampling to ensure variation in managerial roles and years of experience. Data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews with managers from Indonesian Islamic banks and analyzed thematically to identify core patterns of meaning. Following IPA procedures, the analysis included multiple stages: initial noting, development of emergent themes, clustering of superordinate themes, and iterative cross-case comparison to ensure analytical rigor and transparency. The results reveal that Shariah compliance is perceived as a dynamic process of moral negotiation, sustained by spiritual resilience and a deep sense of divine accountability. Participants describe their work as both a professional duty and an act of worship, reflecting a holistic integration of faith and finance. These insights extend current knowledge by reframing compliance as an experiential and transformative practice rather than a procedural task, contributing to a deeper understanding of ethical consciousness in Islamic financial management. The findings also suggest that fostering spiritually grounded leadership can strengthen institutional integrity and enhance the authenticity of Shariah-based practices across the industry.