Islamic Finance Research Research Articles

Analyzing Research Trends and Future Prospects in Islamic Capital Markets through Bibliometric Mapping

This study conducts a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of the Islamic finance field, utilizing VOSviewer to map out the scholarly landscape and investigate author collaborations, thematic clusterization, and evolving research trends. Our analysis identifies key thematic clusters centered on Islamic banking, Sharia law, and various financial instruments like Sukuk, along with the examination of market dynamics such as volatility and the impact of global disruptions like the COVID-19 pandemic. The study highlights the multidimensional nature of Islamic finance research and pinpoints areas with potential for deeper investigation, particularly in the integration of technology and ethical finance principles into Islamic financial practices. Furthermore, the exploration of author collaboration networks reveals a robust academic community with influential scholars at the core, facilitating a dynamic exchange of ideas and fostering significant research developments. The findings suggest promising directions for future research, emphasizing the need for further integration of interdisciplinary approaches and emerging technologies in the field of Islamic finance. This study serves as a valuable resource for academics, practitioners, and policymakers engaged in Islamic finance, offering insights that can drive future innovations and collaborations in the sector.

Bibliometric Analysis: Risk Management in Islamic Finance Under The Islamic Jurisprudence Framework

Research Objectives: This study aims to comprehensively analyze the stakeholders who play the most role in risk management research in Islamic finance, analyze the evolution and trends in the topic to provide future research direction.Method: This study uses a bibliometric method in biblioshiny R-Studio. Observation data is taken from the Scopus database in the form of articles and English-language.Results: We found that MK Hassan is the leading author, International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) is the leading affiliation, the Journal of Islamic Accounting and Business Research is the leading journal, and Malaysia is the leading country. We highlight the need for further studies to develop risk management models under Islamic principles. In addition, the rapid development of Islamic finance due to the Industrial Revolution 4.0 must be balanced with technology to minimize risks in Islamic finance.Novelty: Not only analyzes the publication quantitatively, this study also reviews the most cited papers. Furthermore, the overall analysis provides insight into the future direction of research.Conclusion: The trend of research on Islamic financial risk is not consistently growing. Besides that, the citation rate also shows a downward trend. This shows a lack of research interest in this topic. Furthermore, Islamic financial risk management is still dominated by the Islamic banking sector and limited to other sectors.

Islamic Fintech Research Worldwide: A Bibliometric Analysis

Islamic Fintech continues to grow as innovation in the field of technology accelerates human life. Although relatively new, research on Islamic Fintech continues to grow and has been quite attractive to researchers in recent years. Seeing this phenomenon, it is necessary to anticipate the increasing interest of academics in researching Islamic Fintech. This paper aims to facilitate researchers in finding out the development of Islamic Fintech research, find topics that can be developed, and know the main contributors and sources that shape research in the field of Islamic Fintech. This research analysis is a Bibliometric analysis with Biblioshiny and VOSviewer software, using metadata consisting of 98 Scopus-indexed data published in 10 years, namely 2013-2022. The results of the study found that the potential for developing research on the theme of Islamic Finance is huge, topics that can be developed for further research include "Crowdfunding" and "Crowdsourcing.” Meanwhile, Muslim-majority countries dominate Islamic Finance research, including with their authors and affiliations.

Tracing knowledge diffusion flows in Islamic finance research: a main path analysis

Purpose This study aims to address the noted gap in comprehensive overviews detailing the developmental trajectory of Islamic finance (IF) as an interdisciplinary academic field. Design/methodology/approach The study introduces a unique approach using the combined methodologies of co-word analysis and main path analysis (MPA) by examining a broad collection of IF research articles. Findings The investigation identifies dominant themes and foundational works that have influenced the IF discipline. The data reveals prominent areas such as Shariah governance, financial resilience, ethical dimensions and customer-centric frameworks. The MPA offers detailed insights, narrating a journey from the foundational principles of IF to its current challenges and opportunities. This journey covers harmonizing religious beliefs with contemporary financial models, changes in regulatory landscapes and the continuous effort to align with broader socioeconomic aspirations. Emerging areas of interest include using new technologies in IF, standardizing global Islamic banking and assessing its socioeconomic effects on broader populations. Originality/value This study represents a pioneering effort to map out and deepen the understanding of the IF field, highlighting its dynamic evolution and suggesting potential avenues for future academic exploration.

Women empowerment in Africa: can we rely on Islamic finance?

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of Islamic finance on women empowerment in Africa between the periods of 1975 and 2021. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses secondary data for 27 African countries obtained from the World Development Indicators, World Population Review and the Varieties of Democracy databases. Four dimensions of women empowerment, namely, economic, social, political and household, are considered while Islamic finance is proxied by a binary variable with 1 and 0 representing the presence and the absence of Islamic finance, respectively. The two-staged least square estimation technique is used to control for the problem of endogeneity. Findings This study revealed that Islamic finance positively affects women empowerment in Africa. Specifically, Islamic finance has positive and significant effects on women political empowerment, women economic empowerment and women social empowerment in Africa but nonsignificant effect on home empowerment. These effects are more pronounced in middle-income than in low-income countries and in countries with higher penetration rate of Islamic finance. Practical implications Policymakers should put in place the necessary mechanisms for the promotion of Islamic finance such as the enacting of laws that ensures the creation of full-fledged Islamic banks, encouraging research in Islamic finance and Islamic economics. These policies should equally be backed by the creation of some accompanying measures such as the abolition of social norms that limit women’s ability to take part in decision-making. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study involving an Africa continent-wide analysis of the effects of Islamic finance on women empowerment.

FOUR NUANCES OF ISLAMIC FINANCE RESEARCH: A BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS APPROACH FOR EXPLORING THE STRUCTURE OF RESEARCH

Background and Purpose: Islamic finance is an important driver of the economy for the Muslim world, particularly to the developing Muslim majority countries in Southeast Asia. Scholars continue to pay close attention to Islamic finance research because it differs from conventional finance in many ways. Islamic finance research, like other fields of study, has to take a step back to evaluate what has been accomplished, who has contributed, and what the trending research topics are throughout its development. To that end, this research aims to investigate the structure of Islamic finance research by identifying its key nuances to date.
 
 Methodology: This study uses the VOSviewer program to perform bibliometric analysis techniques, particularly the citation, bibliographic coupling, and co-word analysis, to investigate the structure of Islamic finance research. The analyses were conducted by identifying the scientific journals that have a significant impact in the field based on a sample of 1,567 articles spanning the years 1955 to 2019, or 65 years of research.
 
 Findings: The major findings of the study are the identification of the four key nuances that form the structure of Islamic finance research and the most referred publications for each of the nuances using citation, bibliometric coupling and co-word analysis. The key nuances include: 1) Bank performance, stability, corporate governance, and risk management; 2) Customer’s patronization and satisfaction factors; 3) Islamic microfinancing and social banking; and 4) Islamic capital market products and performance.
 
 Contributions: This study presents an easy-to-read network of research nuances useful for understanding the Islamic finance literature and supporting future research in this field. The study also provides practical contributions to Islamic financial institutions by showing the major areas of focus to improve or sustain them in the industry.
 
 Keywords: Bibliometric analysis, Islamic finance nuances, literature review, co-word, bibliographic coupling.
 
 Cite as: Abdullah, A. R., Abdullah, S. S., Zainuddin, S. A., Azmi, N. F., & Abdullah, T. (2023). Four nuances of Islamic finance research: A bibliometric analysis approach for exploring the structure of research. Journal of Nusantara Studies, 8(1), 158-183. http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol8iss1pp158-183

Islamic Financial Research Directions During Pandemic: A Bibliometric Analysis

This study aims to determine the direction of development of Islamic finance research during the pandemic, focusing on the growth of international publications in the field of Islamic finance in the Scopus database between 2020 and 2022. Bibliometric mapping consists of core journals in international publications in the field of Islamic finance, the productivity of researchers in the field of Islamic finance, the number of publications based on institutional collaboration in international publications in the field of Islamic finance, the development of international publications on research in the field of Islamic finance by subject/field, and a map of the development of international publications on research in the field of Islamic finance.

Perceptions about the common malpractice of Zakat paying in Bangladesh during Covid-19 pandemic: evidence from the supply side

PurposeA nationwide common malpractice in Zakat distribution has been prevailing in Bangladesh for the past few decades. The paper is a groundbreaking effort to investigate the perceptions of the Zakat payers about the common malpractices and to highlight whether any change in the conventional distribution of Zakat has occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic. The study also aims to extract the common perception of the Zakat payers regarding the validity of the changed practices during the pandemic.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopts the qualitative research approach allowing an in-depth interview technique based on an unstructured questionnaire schedule to obtain information from the Zakat payers, complemented by the key informant interview with the Islamic Scholars. The study obtained data from Zakat payers administering a purposive sampling technique based on two specified criteria. After coding the information on three main themes, content analysis is used to examine the results.FindingsThe results reveal that although the Zakat payers dislike the common practices because of some antithetical issues, they still practice the same customs. Moreover, they apportion most of the value of Zakat in purchasing low-quality festive-motive clothes for the recipients. They are ignorant about Islamic law and the validity of such practices. According to scholars, these activities are not a pure system of Zakat provision and unable to alleviate poverty. Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, this practice shifted heavily to buying food items for the poor due to the financial hurdles they confronted during the pandemic. Although no solid argument is deduced from the participants about the exactitude of such distributional change, scholars regard the transformation as beneficial to the afflicted and the impoverished who have been hit by the pandemic, as well as not conflicting with the Zakat legislation.Practical implicationsThe study is a novel contribution to addressing the malpractice in Zakat distribution through receiving practical information from the Zakat payers, which will help produce more in-depth research in Islamic finance. Furthermore, this research will help the government and people raise awareness about the authentic practices of Zakat distribution according to the codes of Shari’ah.Originality/valueThis study is a pioneering investigation since a scarcity of scholarly works attempted to identify the impact of Covid-19 on the practice of Zakat distribution and the associated perception regarding its Islamic jurisprudence. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the investigation of common malpractices of Zakat is still unearthed by no former rigorous studies in the context of Bangladesh. The present study bridges this gap and paves a pragmatic research dimension in the Islamic finance.

Islamic Social Finance: A Bibliometric Analysis

Islamic social finance was discussed in 2013 by IRTI-IDB as a new spirit in solving the economic problem by allocating funds for humanitarian social works by using zakah, infaq, sadaqah, waqf, qardh al-hasan, and Islamic micro-insurance and Islamic microfinance. Islamic social finance has many imperatives to solve socio-economic problems. Therefore, it is needed to study the current state of Islamic social finance research to date. Thus, the study attempts to explore the status of Islamic social finance literature using bibliometric analysis by identifying statistics number of publications year by year, influential aspects, visualization of co-occurrence of keywords, and data texts related to the topic of Islamic social finance by using VOSviewer software. The finding of the study indicated that few articles discussed Islamic social finance. The most discussion of Islamic social finance was in 2019, which tried to handle the issues of the Covid-19 pandemic. Consequently, the journals that contributed the most to the study of Islamic social finance were al-Shajarah and the International Journal of Islamic and Middle Eastern Finance and Management. IIUM and INCEIF have contributed the most in the literature related to Islamic social finance from the author's affiliation. Malaysia is the most contributing country in writing Islamic social finance literature. Furthermore, the most selected keywords of Islamic finance research are Islamic social finance, maqasid syariah, value-based intermediation, sustainable development goals, and waqf. For the most co-occurrence text data, six clusters discussed the role of Islamic social finance in Covid-19, culture and country case on Islamic social finance, sustainable development goals, ecosystem, and maqashid syari’ah.

Islamic social finance: a literature review and future research directions

PurposeThis paper aims to study the main trends of scientific research in Islamic finance’s social aspects to clarify place, role and functions, especially in the context of increasing social problems. To achieve this goal, this paper focuses on the social component of Islamic finance, analyzes publications on social Islamic finance in the Web of Science database, covering the period from 1979 to 2020, specify the geographical localization of research networks, determines the most cited authors and their scientific position.Design/methodology/approachThe authors have applied several literature review techniques, a bibliometric citation and co-citation analysis, a co-authorship analysis and a review of the most cited papers. The analyzes’ results allow us to offer five future questions in Islamic social finance, zakat and waqf, which have not been investigated before and could influence Islamic social finance and Islamic finance research.FindingsThe authors also derive and summarize five leading future research questions.Research limitations/implicationsThis is a limitation of using only the Web of Science Core Collection database as the premier resource and the most trusted citation index for the world’s scientific and scholarly research. Further study might expand the types of analyzed units, include more keywords and include other databases, such as Scopus.Originality/valueThis paper can be considered as an inspirational one to future researchers and policymakers in Islamic social finance.

A bibliometric analysis of quality research papers in Islamic finance: evidence from Web of Science

Purpose The purpose of this study is to provide quantitative information on the growth of Islamic finance literature. The study focused on publishing trends, countries producing research on Islamic finance, key authors, major contributing organizations, authorship patterns, keywords and articles with the highest citations. Design/methodology/approach Bibliometric analysis is applied to analyse the growth and publishing trends in Islamic finance literature. The Web of Science (WoS) database was used to extract bibliometric data covering the period 1939–2019 for Islamic finance literature. Findings The study finds that Islamic finance research has gained remarkable momentum in the literature. However, such growth is largely manifested in Malaysia because of a conducive atmosphere for this type of research. Interestingly, the study finds that the three most productive journals are located in the UK and Malaysia, while Professor M. Kabir Hassan from the University of New Orleans, the USA appears to head the list of authors with 23 publications on Islamic finance. Practical implications This study provides up-to-date literature on the current state of Islamic finance in the world; as a result, it supports the development of policies by the Islamic finance industry. The findings of the study also serve as a reference point for Islamic finance training and educational institutions. Originality/value Islamic finance is an emerging financial discipline; as such, there is a need for more awareness of this financial system in the world. Muslim-majority countries, especially Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Pakistan and Bahrain, have to include Islamic finance in their curriculum and establish research institutions and research journals. In addition, Arabic language journals should be indexed in WoS and/or Scopus to provide a high-quality publication platform. This study provides a more comprehensive bibliometric analysis on the growth of Islamic finance literature (1939–2019) in the WoS database; most of the prior studies have covered relatively few areas of focus and a lower range of years in some cases.

Guest Editors’ Notes: COVID-19: The Pandemic’s Impacts on The Economy and Realisation of Maqasid Al-Shariah and Islamic Finance

The COVID-19 pandemic have a sudden and significant impacts to the economies globally. It changes the business landscape and how and what consumers buy dramatically. During the enforcement of lockdown, businesses particularly in airline and tourism sectors experienced sharp fall of demand and services. In Malaysia, it is reported that a total of 170,084 hotel room bookings during the period 11 January 2020 until 16 March 2020 had been cancelled, which caused a loss of revenue amounting to RM68,190,364 (Foo et al., 2020). The phenomenon has affected gross domestic product (GDP) growth, household consumption, inflation and unemployment rates. A substantial numbers of small and medium enterprises (SME) face difficult times to survive which resulted many employees have lost jobs or to accept salary cut. It is anticipated that the COVID-19 pandemic will lead to another global economic crisis. Hence, governments had taken specific intervention policies to sustain the domestic markets during the full swing of the pandemic and during the post-war recovery to boost back the economy into the right track. The policies aimed at preventing employees from losing their jobs, securing renters and homeowners from evicting properties, avoiding companies from bankruptcy, and maintaining business and trade networks. Central banks across the globe have cut profit and interest rates in providing liquidity to keep moving the business sectors and household spending. In addition, some governments in emerging economies have granted moratorium to assist people who are affected by the pandemic. Nevertheless, the domestic policies will have their own challenges including high level of public debt. Thus, the government and central banks have critical roles to play in formulating the right monetary, fiscal and financial policies for their respective countries. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed consumer spending patterns and behaviour. While most industries suffered from decline demand, there are industries which benefit from the pandemic outbreak. Cloud computing, video conferencing, electronic payments, online food delivery, frozen foods and beverages (F&B) businesses are experiencing rapid growth. The COVID-19 is pushing companies to swiftly operate in new ways by accelerating digital transformation. Another impact brought by the pandemic is workforce disruption. COVID-19 has made working from home as a new normal. The notion of traditional working environment in an office eight hours a day, five days a week has suddenly become obsolete. Employees now has the flexibility of remote working which help in reducing the traffic congestion. However, as some employers consider to make working from home a permanent arrangement it would significantly affect office commercial space sector. Based on these economic impacts of COVID-19, the special edition of Journal of Muamalat and Islamic Finance Research (JMIFR) aims at documenting current research and academic works related to the topics. This special edition intends to demonstrate how Islamic financial industry react and overcome the new challenges during the pandemic. In doing so, the objective of Shariah (Maqasid al-Shariah) is adopted as the guiding principle in assessing any issues or measures taken for the benefits of various industry’s stakeholders. With a total asset of more than USD2 trillion globally, Islamic finance industry has contributed significantly to the development of Muslim communities in many parts of the world. Thus, it is interesting to examine how the Islamic finance industry’s stakeholders including regulators, Shariah fraternity, industry practitioners and customers act to remain resilient under the adverse economic scenarios. The realization of the principle of Maqasid al-Shariah in Islamic banking operations is an on-going project. The Maqasid al-Shariah principles necessitate that Islamic banking and financial institutions to safeguard the wealth of all different stakeholders with fair business dealings. The COVID-19 pandemic presents a true test to the Islamic financial institutions on how they apply the concept of Maqasid al-Shariah in their decisions to achieve a balanced and win-win situation during the challenging times. Islamic financial institutions are expected to take more responsible approach in supporting those who are affected by the pandemic.

Banks, Funds, and risks in islamic finance: Literature & future research avenues

In this paper, we present the current state of research in Islamic finance by focusing on three spheres of knowledge: Islamic banking, Islamic fund management, and risk management. We also discuss regulatory issues while systematically referring to conventional finance as a benchmark. We conclude by shedding more light on future research avenues.

Demystifying the Theoretical Framework of Research in Islamic Finance: A Review of Literature

This research takes insights into the research on Islamic finance before and after the occurrence of financial crisis to rediscover its linkages with Islamic socialism and capitalism across international boundaries to establish grounds of Islamic finance theoretical framework. It takes extensive review of literature on Islamic Socialism, Capitalism and Islamic Capitalism taking into account differences in practices of Islamic finance in Islamic and non Islamic countries. Research in Islamic finance has great linkages with Islamic socialism, Islamic capitalism and capitalism as affected by the occurrence of financial crisis during the period of research. The originality value of this research work lies in the novel selection of period of research literature, and the discovery of theoretical framework in Islamic finance research, “Islamic socialistic capitalism”.

Demystifying the Theoretical Framework of Research in Islamic Finance: A Review of Literature

This research takes insights into the research on Islamic finance before and after the occurrence of financial crisis to rediscover its linkages with Islamic socialism and capitalism across international boundaries to establish grounds of Islamic finance theoretical framework. It takes extensive review of literature on Islamic Socialism, Capitalism and Islamic Capitalism taking into account differences in practices of Islamic finance in Islamic and non Islamic countries. Research in Islamic finance has great linkages with Islamic socialism, Islamic capitalism and capitalism as affected by the occurrence of financial crisis during the period of research. The originality value of this research work lies in the novel selection of period of research literature, and the discovery of theoretical framework in Islamic finance research, “Islamic socialistic capitalism.”

Finance as Worship: A Survey of Islamic Finance Research

The global Islamic finance industry is estimated to be worth approximately US $1.4 trillion, and has grown much faster than conventional finance over the past four decades. Although 80% of this industry is concentrated in the Middle East, North Africa, East Asia, and the Pacific, it is active in 59 countries across all continents. Formally launched in the 1970s, this industry has deep roots in Islamic law (Sharia) and offers many implications for modern finance. In this survey, we explore key aspects of Islamic financing through banking, capital markets, and private contracting. Our objective is to attract the attention of academic researchers, regulators and standard setters, and providers/users of Islamic funding to the critical issues related to the efficiency of Islamic finance.

A synthesis of theoretical and empirical research on sukuk

This paper provides a critical review of the theoretical and empirical literature on sukuk (Shari'ah-compliant bonds) from three perspectives: their underlying theory and nature, the operational issues and structures involved in sukuk, and the role of sukuk in economic development. The article suggests that the literature on sukuk is largely qualitative rather than quantitative research, with the bulk of academic research in the form of conference and seminar papers. The research on sukuk in the form of journal articles, books, conference papers, reports, and magazines has increased substantially, but it is still in relatively short supply in comparison to other research on Islamic finance. This underdeveloped state of research on sukuk is mainly due to a lack of historical, reliable, and consistent data; a limited number of academic institutions dedicated to Islamic economics and finance; the small number of high-quality refereed journals as potential outlets for Islamic finance research; the unresolved concept of sukuk among Shari'ah scholars; and the absence of a global standard and accreditation for Islamic finance courses.

An empirical survey of individual consumer, business firm and financial institution attitudes towards Islamic methods of finance

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to review the attitudes, perceptions and knowledge of Islamic financial products and services.Design/methodology/approachA synoptic survey of empirical analyses about Islamic financial products and services and comparison with the literature on conventional financial services and products.FindingsIt was found that while religious conviction is a key factor in the use of Islamic finance, consumers also identify bank reputation, service quality and pricing as being of relevance. When selecting a financial institution's products and services, business firms usually employ criteria that are more conventional, such as the cost of finance, in their decision making. There is also interest among financial institutions in supplying Islamic financial products and services, but this is mitigated by complications with firm management and a lack of familiarity with business conditions. The concept of risk sharing with borrowers serves as a substantial barrier to most financial institutions engaging in Islamic methods of finance. Research limitations/implications – This survey is limited to work published in refereed journals, books and book chapters.Practical implicationsNeed for further theoretical and empirical research on how religious convictions affect consumers in their financial decision making. In addition, most work on Islamic finance is in a single national context, international comparisons are required.Originality/valueThis paper is the only known empirical survey of attitudes, perceptions and knowledge of Islamic financial products and services. It provides guidance for future research in Islamic finance and serves as an aid for decision making by policymakers, consumer interest groups, business firms and financial institutions.

Ownership Structure across Lines of Property-Casualty Insurance

Ownership Structure across Lines of Property-Casualty Insurance