Why Ihsan Agile Exists

Ihsan Agile is a free to use, open framework that overlays Islamic principles onto existing Agile methods like Scrum, Kanban, and SAFe.

It doesn't replace these frameworks, it enriches them by operationally embedding Niyyah (intention), Iḥsān (excellence with God-consciousness), and Maslahah (public good) into the daily rhythms of delivery teams in a clear and structured way.

The framework provides practical tools for Muslim-led organisations to translate Islamic values into operational practice.

What is Ihsan Agile?

Muslim tech and Islamic enterprise are experiencing an exciting moment. Organisations articulate inspiring values. The Muslim Tech Manifesto energises developers. Islamic fintech multiplies. There is conviction, vision, and real momentum.

Many successful Muslim-led teams maintain Islamic values through strong culture, individual judgment, and shared understanding, especially in founder-led teams using established Agile methods like Scrum, Kanban, and SAFe.

As teams grow and evolve, natural questions emerge: How do we translate high-level Islamic principles into the daily Agile ceremonies our teams already use? How do we enrich sprint planning, retrospectives, and stakeholder reviews with our values, without replacing methods that work?

Islamic finance has developed sophisticated governance structures: Shariah supervisory boards, compliance frameworks, high-level ethical commitments. These provide essential product-level oversight.

Yet the operational layer, where software teams make hundreds of micro-decisions daily, often relies on individual judgment and intuition.

Who helps teams make Islamic values systematic in everyday delivery? And how do they learn and teach this?

Who ensures sprint planning reflects niyyah, retrospectives include muhāsabah, and definition of done embodies justice and stewardship?

Who translates principles into daily Agile practice?

Who ensures everyday decisions actively express Islamic values?

Who helps teams move from manifesto to mechanism, from principles to practice?

Ihsan Agile provides a practical approach by offering:

• The Ihsan Agile Facilitator (IAF) role, a companion-coach who helps teams embed ethical consciousness into Agile workflows they already use

• Practical overlays that enrich existing Agile ceremonies (adding 2-10 minutes, not replacing what works)

• Five Core Principles rooted in The Qur'an and Sunnah that operationalise values in daily practice: Taqwā, Stewardship, Shūrā, Service & Justice, and Tazkiyah

The framework overlays onto Scrum, Kanban, SAFe, or Scrumban, enriching sprint planning with niyyah check-ins, retrospectives with muhāsabah reflection, and definition of done with ethical completeness criteria.

Why Ihsan Agile Exists: Making Values Operational

Who Stewards Ihsan Agile

Dr. David Wallace-Hare is a charity-sector Agile practitioner, social entrepreneur, and scholar whose work bridges Islamic ethics, organisational delivery, and community impact.

He works with local charities and community organisations through PlaceBased Agile, helping teams embed values into their delivery practices. As founder and director of Islamic Finance Options for Muslim Nonprofits (IFOMN) CIC—selected for Cambridge Social Ventures’ inaugural Peaceshaping and Climate incubator—he has addressed financial exclusion facing Muslim charities and social enterprises in the UK and abroad.

David holds a PhD in Classics (University of Toronto), an MSc in Charity Marketing & Fundraising (Bayes Business School), and has completed the Shariah strand of INCEIF’s Professional Certificate in Islamic Finance. He is certified as a Professional Scrum Master (PSM I), Kanban Management Professional (KMP), Scrum Kanban Practitioner (SKP), and Agile Coach (ICP-ACC). He serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Islamic Banking, Economics, and Policy.

How Ihsan Agile Began

While writing about Scrum retrospectives for Muslim-led organizations in 2025, David began searching for frameworks that could bridge high-level Islamic values and daily Agile practice.

He began exploring whether this could be made systematic and teachable and searched for frameworks connecting Islamic principles specifically to Sprint Planning, Retrospectives, Definition of Done, the ceremonies where teams make daily decisions using the most common Agile methods in practice (Scrum, Kanban, SAFe).

Academic research addressed Islamic ethics in HR practices (e.g. https://journal2.unfari.ac.id/index.php/karismapro/article/view/1436). Other scholars developed Islamic continuous improvement models (e.g. https://ejournal.usm.my/aamj/article/view/aamj_vol24-no1-2019_6). But he wasn't able to find anything that connected Islamic principles specifically to Sprint Planning, Retrospectives, or Definition of Done, the ceremonies where teams make daily decisions and to the most commonly used agile frameworks in practice (Scrum, Kanban, and SAFe).

Drawing on Islamic scholarship around stewardship (amānah), consultation (shūrā), excellence with God-consciousness (iḥsān ), and justice (ʿadl), combined with practical Agile coaching, charity and social enterprise experience, and the the product development and design influence of Islamic finance, David created Ihsan Agile, a framework that overlays Islamic principles onto existing Agile methods.

The framework provides Muslim-led Agile teams with practical overlays that make Islamic values visible and actionable in sprint work, without replacing existing Agile methods.

Ihsan Agile is being developed through participatory practice with Muslim-led organisations, not top-down prescription, but collaborative refinement based on real implementation experience.

Current stage: Pilot phase
Approach: Working with early adopter organisations to test the IAF role and practices in real-world contexts

This is about building with the community, not for the community. Every organisation that pilots the framework contributes to refining the practices, expanding the body of knowledge, and demonstrating what's possible when Islamic values become operational, not aspirational.

The framework will be stewarded by a nonprofit organisation to ensure it remains:

• Free and accessible to the global Muslim community

• Open for adaptation and translation

• Developed through community wisdom and Islamic finance principles, not commercial interests

Licensed under: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)

You are free to adapt, translate, and use this framework—so long as you attribute the source and share your adaptations under the same license.

How Ihsan Agile is Being Developed

The Vision

Ihsan Agile aims to become:

• A practical framework used by Muslim-led organisations across Islamic fintech, tech, charities, and social enterprises

• A community of practice connecting Ihsan Agile Facilitators worldwide

• A body of knowledge documenting how Islamic values can be operationalised in Agile delivery

• A nonprofit membership organisation providing training, certification, and ongoing support

The framework serves teams who want to formalise ethical practices they're already maintaining, make implicit values explicit and teachable, and sustain Islamic commitments as they grow without starting from scratch or replacing Agile methods that work.

The goal is not commercial growth. The goal is serving the ummah by helping Muslim teams align their daily work with the higher objectives of Islamic law (maqāṣid al-sharīʿah), turning everyday delivery into a form of ʿibādah (worship).

When a development team makes a decision about technical debt, when a product owner prioritises features, when a team conducts a retrospective—these aren't just operational moments. They're opportunities to embody ihsān, to practice stewardship, to serve maslahah.