Hejaz Halal ETFs Reviewed: ISLM, SKUK, HJZP, HJHI and HHIF (2026)

Hejaz Financial Services, founded 2014 and describing itself as Australia's leading Islamic financial group, has built the only listed halal fund range in the country: five active ETFs on the ASX. This review works through each fund on holdings, cost, governance and published performance, then weighs the range as a whole. All figures were verified August 5, 2026 from Hejaz's fund pages, performance table and PDS disclosures. We hold no position in any fund reviewed.

The governance backbone

Credit where due: the certification stack is real. Each fund is a registered managed investment scheme with Equity Trustees Limited (AFSL 240975) as responsible entity, legally independent of the manager. Screening follows AAOIFI standards. Certification comes from the Shariah board of the Australian National Imams Council, with the certificate published as a PDF and semi-annual independent Shariah audits stated. At group level Hejaz names a three-scholar Sharia board - Dr Faizal Ahmed Al Manjoo, Dr Samir Alamad and Bilal Omarjee - with Minarah Consulting as external Shariah supervisory board. Among Australian investment products, only MCCA's named panel with Amanie Advisors certification matches this depth. One blemish: Hejaz's own pages cite two different ABN and AFSL pairs for Hejaz Asset Management on different pages, an inconsistency we flagged in our research and that the company should fix.

ISLM: the flagship earns its place, at a price

The Hejaz Equities Fund Active ETF (ISLM, ARSN 653 786 273) listed 17 October 2022 as Australia's first halal ETF. It holds a concentrated, actively managed global equities book: Taiwan Semiconductor, BYD, AMD, Air Products, Monster Beverage among published top holdings. Performance to 31 May 2026: 16.34% over one year, 11.56% p.a. since inception. Fees and costs run 1.89% p.a. plus 0.31% estimated transaction costs per the PDS. The verdict: genuinely strong early performance from the only game in town, at a price that demands the performance continue. Three and a half years is not long enough to know whether it will.

SKUK: necessary, misunderstood

The Sukuk Active ETF (SKUK, ARSN 666 691 943) listed 2 November 2023 and remains Australia's only listed halal fixed-income option. Published holdings are quality sovereign and corporate paper: Saudi Arabia 4.511% 2033, Indonesia 4.4% 2027, First Abu Dhabi Bank 4.581% 2028, SECO 5.06% 2043. Fees and costs are 1.33% p.a. The year to 31 May 2026 delivered -3.91% (2.63% p.a. since inception). That negative year is not a scandal - sukuk trade like bonds, and rate and currency moves hit prices - but it is exactly what buyers treating SKUK as a cash substitute did not expect. Hejaz does not disclose on the fund page whether currency exposure is hedged, which for an AUD investor holding USD-denominated Gulf paper is a material omission. Use it as a portfolio stabiliser with a multi-year horizon, not a savings account.

HJZP: listed property, thin disclosure

The Property Fund Active ETF (HJZP, ARSN 653 783 085) holds AAOIFI-screened Australian and global REITs - Bunnings Warehouse Property Trust, Prologis, Vicinity Centres among published names - targeting total returns tracking the MSCI World REITs Index hedged to AUD over rolling five-to-seven-year periods. Fees and costs are 1.50% p.a. plus 0.15% estimated transaction costs. What you will not find: HJZP in the published performance table at all. For a fund whose registration dates to 2021, the absence of a published return series is the biggest disclosure gap in the range.

HJHI and HHIF: the 2024 additions

The High Income Active ETF (HJHI, ARSN 675 069 066, listed 30 April 2024) holds Shariah-compliant large caps above $2 billion market capitalisation selected for significant dividends: Merck, PepsiCo, Newmont, Ericsson among published names. At 1.10% p.a. plus 0.15% transaction costs it is the cheapest fund in the range. Performance to 31 May 2026: 3.04% over one year, 5.24% p.a. since inception - modest, as income strategies in a growth market tend to be.

The High Innovation Active ETF (HHIF, ARSN 675 069 379, listed April 2024) is the aggressive satellite: TSMC, BYD, Pop Mart, Murata against an MSCI ACWI IMI Innovation benchmark hedged into AUD. Fees and costs are 1.55% p.a. per the PDS and December 2025 factsheet. Fund size was about A$10.3M at 31 December 2025 - small enough that spreads and viability deserve watching - and like HJZP it shows no entry in the published performance table.

Scorecard

Who should use this range, and how

If you invest only through the ASX and want certified halal exposure, this is the entire menu, and it is workable: ISLM as the core, SKUK as the stabiliser, the others as deliberate tilts. A plausible simple split for a long horizon is a large ISLM allocation with SKUK for ballast, adding HJHI if income matters. If you can access international markets through your broker, compare fees before defaulting here; the cost gap against overseas-listed screened index funds is significant and compounds.

What we want from Hejaz next: performance published for all five funds, hedging policy on the fund pages, fees on the website rather than only the PDS, and the ABN inconsistency cleaned up. Certification this good deserves disclosure to match.

How the range compares beyond Australia

Context sharpens the review. Globally, Islamic index ETFs listed in the US, UK and Canada track established Shariah benchmarks at management fees that undercut this range substantially - a structural gap, since passive index replication is cheaper to run than active management. Hejaz has chosen the active model and prices accordingly; its published UCITS expansion plans (five pre-inception ETFs flagged for the London Stock Exchange, GBP-hedged) suggest the group's ambitions run well past the Australian retail market. For an Australian investor the practical takeaway is not that the fees are illegitimate - active certified management costs what it costs - but that the fee premium should buy something: either performance, which ISLM has so far delivered, or exposure unavailable elsewhere, which SKUK and HJZP genuinely provide on the ASX.

On certification depth, the range holds up well internationally. ANIC certification with semi-annual audits, AAOIFI screening, an independent responsible entity and published certificates is a stack comparable to well-governed overseas Islamic funds, and better documented than many. The recurring theme of this review - governance stronger than disclosure - is a maturity gap rather than a red flag: young fund ranges tend to build the compliance machinery first and the investor-relations polish later. The manager's response to that gap over the next year or two will say a lot.

A last practical note on buying: all five funds are accessible two ways, and the right way depends on order size. Under roughly $1,000 per order, the Halal Money app's flat A$10 brokerage is proportionally expensive and a standard low-cost ASX broker is usually cheaper; at larger sizes the difference fades. Either way, batch your contributions - monthly or quarterly lumps rather than weekly trickles - and reinvest distributions manually when they accumulate to a sensible order size. Costs you control compound just like returns do.

See our ASX halal ETF buyer's guide for the market context, the screening explainer for what AAOIFI certification tests, and the Hejaz provider profile for the group's full product shelf. This review reflects disclosures as of August 5, 2026 and is general information, not personal financial advice.