Islamic finance is at an inflection point.
Demand for Shariah-compliant financial services is expanding rapidly across the GCC, South and Southeast Asia, and Africa, creating demographic and liquidity tailwinds.
Yet the industry’s global potential remains constrained by structural barriers — fragmented regulation, legacy banking infrastructure, and systems built for conventional finance rather than ethical banking.
For Abdallah Abu-Sheikh, founder of Mal, these are not abstract industry challenges but structural flaws that must be addressed at their foundation.
Shaped by a cross-cultural upbringing and guided by a systems-first philosophy, Abu Sheikh argues that the next chapter of Islamic banking must be built differently: AI-native, ethically embedded, and engineered for scale from day one.
Three Cultures, One Vision
Growing up between three cultures, Abu Sheikh’s leadership philosophy is influenced from his childhood spent across Jordan, the UK, and then China. Before moving to the UAE, Abu-Sheikh established his first firm in West Africa, specifically The Gambia.
“Growing up across very different cultures taught me early that there isn’t one “right” way to build or lead, context matters. My family emphasised responsibility, adaptability, and respect long before those became business buzzwords,” the entrepreneur said.
Abu-Sheikh links personal lessons of trust and respect to his business ethos: “Watching how trust, relationships, and reputation worked differently in each place shaped how I think about leadership today: listen first, move with humility, and build systems that work for real people, not just ideal scenarios.”
Embedding Trust in Business Ventures
His early work in Africa reinforced the importance of robust systems.
“Working in hard situations taught me that good intentions aren’t good enough and systems matter. If infrastructure is flawed, outcomes will be flawed too. Years later, when I looked at banking, especially in emerging and Islamic markets, I saw the same issues: legacy systems, misaligned incentives, and people excluded not by choice but by design,” he explained.
This realistisation inspired his AI-native Islamic digital bank, Mal. “Mal is my attempt to fix that at the infrastructure level by using AI and ethical principles to build something fundamentally better, not just incrementally improved,” the entrepreneur admitted.
Consistency as Currency
Abu-Sheikh has built a reputation as a deeply trusted leader, with Emirati authorities backing his latest venture: Mal.
He broke MEA records, with a $230M seed round to launch the world’s first AI-native Islamic digital bank. The funding round was led by global investment firm BlueFive Capital, with participation from a group of strategic investors and of course regional family offices based out of the GCC.
When asked why investors place such confidence in him, he said: “I think trust comes from consistency. I’m transparent about what I know, what I don’t, and what we’re still figuring out. In Islamic finance especially, awareness and compliance aren’t just regulatory issues, they’re trust issues.”
He is aiming to tackle this very issue throughout Mal’s operations: “We don’t treat Shariah alignment as a checkbox; it’s embedded into how products are designed, governed, and explained. Investors see that we’re building something durable, not opportunistic.”
Barriers to Islamic Banking
While the GCC leads in Shariah-compliant banking, systemic gaps remain across two core markets: the MENA and SSA.
“Islamic banking isn’t lacking demand or capital; it’s lacking modern infrastructure and cohesion. Most Islamic banks today are built on legacy systems originally designed for conventional finance, with Shariah compliance layered on top rather than embedded at the core. That creates friction: slow product innovation, fragmented customer experiences, and higher costs that ultimately get passed on to users,” Abu-Sheikh said.
Fragmentation across regulation, standards, and interpretations also hampers cross-border scalability. “No single player has been able to emerge as a true global leader. Not because the opportunity isn’t there, but because the foundation hasn’t been built for scale,” he said.
Building from the Ground Up
Abu-Sheikh emphasised the distinct approach provided by Mal, emphasising Mal’s intent to build from the ground up.
“More importantly, we treat Shariah alignment as an operating system, not a feature. The goal isn’t to replicate legacy banking digitally, it’s to build a new financial infrastructure that’s ethical by design, scalable by default, and relevant to how people actually live and move money today,” Abu-Sheikh said.
Taking this forward into expansion requires conversations, which are “constructive” and “pragmatic” for the time being.
Expansion plans, include South(-east) Asia first, with Indonesia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, top of the list. “Regulators in these markets understand both the opportunity and the risks, and they’re increasingly open to models that prioritise transparency and technology.”
The firm is “prioritising markets with strong demand for ethical finance, large underbanked populations, and regulatory partners who are open to innovation with Southeast Asia and South Asia being key focus areas.”
Future of Sukuk Markets: GCC and Africa
Recent developments, like Benin issuing its first sovereign sukuk, suggest Africa has the ability to issue sukuk if the market is supported.
Abu-Sheikh sees this as “a great progression towards more sophisticated financial instruments, which signals that there could be good demand for sukuk.” Looking ahead, he expects markets to evolve in geography and purpose.
In the GCC, Abu-Sheikh expects that the bloc will continue to “lead in terms of structure, innovation, and regulatory maturity especially as governments and institutions use sukuk to fund energy transition, infrastructure, and strategic national projects.”
Across Asia, countries like Indonesia and Malaysia already have deep domestic markets and it is expected that investors will see more frequent issuance, broader retail participation, and stronger integration with digital platforms. Asia will shape volume and normalisation.
Africa, meanwhile, represents the “growth frontier,” he said. Issuances like Benin’s are early indicators of what’s possible. As regulatory frameworks mature and investor confidence grows, we’ll see more African sovereigns and corporates using sukuk to access long-term capital aligned with development goals.
Biggest Shift is Infrastructure
Across all regions, the biggest shift will be how sukuk is issued, accessed, and managed.
Technology, including AI and digital infrastructure, will reduce friction, improve transparency, and open the market to a wider base of issuers and investors from the GCC, Southeast Asia, and Africa.
“That evolution is what will ultimately take sukuk from a specialist instrument to a truly global asset class,” he said.
Abdallah Abu-Sheikh is a Emirati Entrepreneur, and Founder of Mal.
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