With the presence of more than 400 participants, SOCPA held a panel discussion on the Professional Code of Ethics in Islam.
The Saudi Organization for Chartered and Professional Accountants (SOCPA) continues to hold more professional panel discussions to introduce the codes of professional behavior and ethics. As part of that effort, SOCPA organized on Saturday 1 May 2021 a panel discussion on the professional code of ethics in Islam. Speaking at the panel was Dr. Mohammed Al Osaimi, the Legal Advisor of the Professional Behavior and Ethics Committee, and the panel was moderated by the Committee's member Mr. Khalid Fida Bahjat.
The discussion topics included work ethics and professional behavior from a Sharia perspective, and the legal adaptation of the work of professional and chartered accountants in the public sector, in addition to international professional ethics per Islamic law.
Dr. Al Osaimi began the session by affirming the inviolability of money in Islam, with it being one of the five guaranteed rights in Islam in which protection was affirmed. He addressed the international professional code of ethics and conduct, and the clarifications stipulated for the places of suspicion and ways to avoid it, and the importance of the Code for the accounting profession. He also reviewed the minor accounting errors that may lead to the occurrence of great economic damage, indicating the close and essential correlation between the accounting profession and the code of ethics, and that honesty and integrity are among the noblest morals that the Islamic law has brought and is the basis of accounting work.
This panel discussion comes in the context of a series of workshops organized by SOCPA to introduce the international codes of professional behavior and ethics in order to share those codes amongst interested professional practitioners, which will help in the technical and professional preparation before committing to the application of these standards.