Internal auditing emerged as a financial activity in 1930s in the United States after several American institutions inspired to ease the pressure on external auditing, given that the U.S. legislation, at that time, was forcing all institutions connected with stock exchanges to have their accounts externally audited in order to be approved.

At the very start, internal auditing received no attention and its role remained marginalized until a number of internal auditors formed a unified organization in New York in 1941 and called it the "American Institute of Internal Auditors", whose mission -since its inception- was to develop and regulate this profession.

Currently, internal auditing is playing a significant role as an administrative tool to rationalize the administrative process in its modern concept. At the beginning, internal auditing was covering only financial records and entries, but later its scope of work has expanded to include administrative and operational areas as a result of economic conditions.

The foundation of internal audit units at governmental and public institutions was approved pursuant to the Council of Ministers’ resolution no. (235) dated Shaaban 20^th, 1425H (corresponding to October 4^th, 2004), whose second Paragraph stipulated that, “Internal audit units shall be founded at all bodies supervised by the General Auditing Bureau, and the Units' Chairman shall directly report to the Bureau’s President”. Also, the Unified Regulation of Internal Audit Units, issued pursuant to the Council of Ministers’ resolution no. (129) dated Rabi' al-Thani 6^th, 1428H (corresponding to April 23^rd, 2007), shall be deemed as the main reference with regard to supervisory tasks and responsibilities assigned to internal audit units.

Hence, the President of Umm Al-Qura University issued the decision no. 3674 dated Safar 5^th, 1431H (corresponding to January 20^th, 2010), authorizing the foundation of a new department for internal auditing and assigning himself as a supervisor of it.

Mission:

The Internal Audit Department takes upon itself the responsibility for improving and enhancing the performance at Umm al-Qura University and adding more values to the department’s sub-divisions, as well as helping the top management to achieve the university’s planned objectives.

Objectives:

1. To establish itself as an impartial and independent supervisory body at Umm al-Qura University, the Internal Audit Department helps the top management to examine and evaluate work of the university’s departments and measure their performance through checking administrative and financial records permanently, taking in mind the university's objectives, policies, laws, regulations and procedures . To that end, the department aims at ensuring the presence of an effective auditing process that could achieve the university's general objectives.
2. The Internal Audit Department helps the senior administrative bodies to assume their assigned tasks efficiently through:

1. Evaluating and measuring the efficiency of the university’s systems of internal auditing.
2. Providing all administrative bodies and top management with appropriate and useful information, as well as analyses, evaluations and recommendations to ensure an effective auditing process and a high performance at fair prices.
3. Providing necessary information in order to ensure:

• Reliability and integrity of information issued by the administrative bodies or submitted to them.
• Fulfillment of objectives, policies, plans, measures, laws and regulations.
• Maintenance of assets.
• Efficient and economic use of available resources.
• Achievement of the set objectives.
• Improvement of performance and making use of feedbacks. 

Values:

Employees of the Internal Audit Department should be characterized by the following morals:

• Righteousness
• Confidentiality
• Integrity
• Subjectivity
• Efficient work