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The purpose of this study is to examine donors’ or waqifs’ desire for waqf-based qardhul hassan financing in Malaysia using a maqasid method, where a pragmatic approach is used.

Using judgemental sampling, a total of 275 waqifs participated in this work to identify their preference in donating their money to the facility should it is introduced. Using the developed waqf-based qardhul hassan scale (WAQASCALE), this study examined the preference accordingly. Data were analysed using IBM SPSS 27.

The results obtained were as follows: the first factor considered by the waqifs in donating money was perceived household well-being, followed by perceived recipients’ welfare, perceived mankind benevolence and perceived Muslims’ community security.

The authors developed construct items that had generalisability issues as they were at the infancy stage of development among social finance scientists along with the narrow geographical constraint where the actual survey was conducted.

The results were useful in giving new guidance to state governments and Islamic banks (IBs) in Malaysia to explore further this sort of facility for the improved well-being of those affected by COVID-19. Besides, sustainable development goals (SDGs), such as poverty, hunger and responsible consumption, among others can be addressed effectively for the mutual well-being of those affected by the health crisis in an effort of combating financial hardships in the meeting of basic needs, at least. The partnership between the state government and IBs could lead to the offered qardhul hassan financing-sourced funding from waqf for reduced financial hardships by needy and poor folks.

This study introduced a new WAQASCALE in the context of qardhul hassan financing in Malaysia.

This study aims to provide a bibliometric analysis of 1,104 journal articles to explore the multifaceted research field of Islamic finance and banking, explicitly emphasising the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Insights into the evolving trends and dynamics within the academic discourse are presented.

The research highlights different patterns and collaborative networks through co-authorship, co-occurrence and thematic map analyses. Prior to the pandemic, research focused primarily on customer satisfaction and compliance with Shariah principles. However, the pandemic heralded an increased discourse on sustainability, fintech and the financial crisis.

This review describes the prevailing academic terrain and identifies potential avenues for future research, particularly those that examine the socio-economic impact of the pandemic within the context of Islamic finance and banking.

Prominent author such as M. Kabir Hassan, leading institution such as the International Islamic University Malaysia and esteemed journal such as the International Journal of Islamic and Middle Eastern Finance and Management have been instrumental in shaping academic discussions and creating synergies in research. Moreover, Malaysia’s strong commitment to spatial research, evidenced by its robust global collaborations, underscores its pioneering role in the academic world of Islamic finance and banking.

This study aims to explore the current trends in the literature about environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices within Islamic banking. It also seeks to identify research gaps and propose directions for future inquiry.

Using a bibliometric analysis, this study synthesises 753 articles from the Scopus database from 1988 to 2023. The analysis was conducted using the biblioshiny package in RStudio and VOSviewer.

It reveals an increasing trajectory in the volume of literature on ESG within Islamic banking, with Muslim-majority countries supported by robust regulatory frameworks leading the discourse. Emerging interest from Muslim-minority countries is also noted. This research delineates five principal research streams and proposes future investigative pathways, including the influence of institutional factors on Islamic banks’ ESG practices.

This study offers valuable insights for Islamic bank management and stakeholders, enhancing their comprehension of ESG practices’ current landscape. Additionally, it directs emerging scholars towards novel and pertinent research opportunities within this domain.

Amidst a growing body of work on ESG and Islamic banking, this study is, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the first bibliometric review dedicated solely to ESG considerations in Islamic banks. It augments the extant literature by adopting a more stringent methodological approach and a rigid quality assessment.

Islamic banks (IBs) place significant importance on their religious identity, prompting the utilization of impression management (IM) strategies to emphasize such identity. This paper aims to discuss the motivations behind using IM in the creation of religious identity by IBs, and to explore the use of religious symbols and language as a form of religious rhetoric. It is argued that to counteract the threats to their religious identity, IBs use IM techniques, predominantly through the inclusion of religious symbols and rhetoric.

An empirical exploratory study, using content analysis, was conducted on the annual reports of the largest IBs for the year 2022. The analyses involved a total of 39 banks based on a filtered list from The Banker’s Top Islamic Financial Institutions of 2022. A manual content analysis was undertaken to extract religious symbols, images and contents.

The findings reveal the use of IM techniques that emphasize the religious identity of these banks. Notably, IBs consistently reaffirm their commitment to Sharia compliance and disclose their contributions to Zakah. In addition, the analysis reveals the incorporation of Quranic verses, religious iconographic images and other religious rhetoric statements in the annual reports of many IBs.

The analysis concludes that the assertion by IBs that their guiding principles are rooted in Islamic values are supported by the religious terminology and imagery embedded in their annual reports. Alongside mere religious symbolism, the terms and images are integral part of the corporate identity of the Islamic that not only sends persuasive signals to stakeholders but also help build an impression on the activities of the IBs.

IM has been a key objective and strategy of companies. This study aimed at exploring whether and how IBs used religious symbolism as an integral part of IM and corporate identity.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the Sharīʿah Basis of AAOIFI’s Sharīʿah Standard No. (60) – “Waqf” and gain an insight into the Islamic jurisprudential schools of thought depended on while drafting/issuing the standard.

This research uses a qualitative methodology and AAOIFI’s Sharīʿah Standard No. (60) – “Waqf” as a case study. This is referred to as a single/holistic case study design.

The findings of this study reveal that while AAOIFI’s Sharīʿah Standard No. (60) – “Waqf” did depend on the Maliki school of fiqh, it certainly referenced other jurisprudential schools of thought, such as Ḥanafī and Shāfiʿī schools of law. This raised a question of legal pluralism and how contemporary Sharīʿah jurisconsults are able to select rulings within particular Islamic jurisprudential schools to fit current needs and for the overall betterment of society.

This research does not delve into the technical aspects of AAOIFI’s waqf standard (furūʿ al-fiqh), but rather, is limited to understanding the basis of rulings therein and the jurisprudential schools of thought heavily depended on.

Given that the (revised) AAOIFI waqf standard is relatively new, limited studies have been conducted particularly focusing on the basis of Sharīʿah rulings therein. This research contributes to knowledge by providing one of the starting points to deliberate on this matter.

The purpose of this paper is to find out the possible gaps in the Sharīʿah governance, and suggest how to fill the same, in line with the principles of Islamic finance and the global developments regarding social and value-based financial intermediation.

The paper uses secondary data gathered through analysis of documents and regulations to portray the current Sharīʿah governance framework and to suggest a unique paradigm to be adopted by the regulators of Islamic financial institutions.

The paradigm encompassing value-oriented financial ecosystem would need a comprehensive set of discipline, accountability and governance for making the pursuit of sustainable development goals and corporate social responsibilities effective in a well-defined schedule prepared and implemented by the regulators.

The scope of this research is limited to theory building in the light of emerging trends in responsible and social finance. It is not to empirically test the impact of the governance framework in terms of social justice, corporate responsibility and sustainability.

It would help the policy makers, regulators, researchers and the practitioners in finance to align banking and finance with social and environmental responsibility, and equity through governance and accountability for realizing the sustainable development goals.

It links the regulatory approaches to the emerging paradigm and ecosystem comprising sustainability and value-based governance, awareness and corporate social responsibility.

The paper adds value to the current regulatory frameworks enabling the Islamic financial institutions to realize the economic, social and sustainability objectives, in addition to Shariah legitimacy and enhanced credibility.

The aim of this study is to measure portfolio diversification benefits of the Turkey-based equity investors into top trading partner countries. Portfolio diversification benefits are analyzed from the viewpoint of two types of investors in Turkey: conventional equities investors and Islamic equity investors.

In order to evaluate the time-varying correlations of the trading partner country's stock index returns with the Turkish stock index returns, the multivariate-generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity–dynamic conditional correlation (GARCH-DCC) is applied based on daily data covering 13 years' period between January 22, 2008 and January 22, 2021.

The results revealed that the US stock indices provide the most diversified benefit for both conventional and Islamic Turkey-based equity investors. In general, Islamic indices exhibit relatively lower correlation with trading partners than conventional indices. Turkey and Russia are recorded as the most volatile indices.

The diversification potential in trading partners for Turkey-based Islamic equity investors has not been studied yet. This study is to fill in this gap in the literature and to give fruitful insights to both conventional and Islamic investors.

Zakat, one of the fundamental pillars of Islam, holds the potential to significantly contribute to fiscal consolidation, particularly in developing nations. However, the national-level potential of Zakat often remains unexplored. This study aims to explore the potential of national-level Zakat and the opportunity to integrate it into the fiscal framework.

This study estimates Zakat’s potential on national financial and economic components. The components include bank deposits, shares and securities, pensions (provident fund), industrial production and trade services, mining resources, Ushr on agro-crops and forestry, Ushr on livestock, Ushr on fishery, gross domestic product (GDP), national budget and national revenue. The study gathers data, ranging from FY2000 to FY2018, on national economic sectors from reliable secondary sources. The net value (NV) of each indicator is calculated as NV = TV − LA, where NV is the wage-adjusted net value after deducting the living adjustment (LA) value from the sectoral total. The proposed LA value, approximately 20%, is suggested to be deducted from the total sectoral value of each sector (excluding specific industries with preadjusted wages), equating to the Nisab value.

It is estimated that the aggregate potential of Zakat in Bangladesh was US$9,749m in FY2018, compared to US$809m in FY2000, revealing the value is 3.77% of GDP and 21% of the national fiscal budget. In FY2018, the service sector was the largest contributor (30%), followed by bank deposits (23%). Pension funds made minimal contributions, whereas shares and bonds, as well as the manufacturing sector, each made a 10% contribution to the estimated Zakat potential. Zakat on agriculture output accounted for 15% of the total. The aggregate potential Zakat in FY2018 was 12% higher than that in FY2000.

The paper highlights a novel contribution through its nuanced analysis of sector-specific Zakat on macrolevel data and its implications within the fiscal framework. The results suggest that Zakat has substantial potential to impact fiscal dynamics, providing valuable insights for policymakers and stakeholders to recognize the national-level Zakat for development plans such as the five-year plan. The study suggests piloting a central and independent national body to study the feasibility of national-level Zakat collection and its utilization in the fiscal budget. It will help the government reduce the burden of external debt and deficit budget and, instead, will promote revenue collection in collaboration with the National Board of Revenue.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether the Ottoman Empire’s net interest payments and foreign debt were sustainable or not in terms of their burden on budget revenues, using the method of historical econometric analysis.

In this study, the period between 1847 and 1882 of the Ottoman Empire is analyzed for sustainability analysis. Within the framework of the study, unit root tests and econometric analysis methods frequently used in the literature were used to analyze the sustainability of public debt. In the econometric analysis, in addition to various unit root tests, current econometric analysis methods, in particular Fourier expansion, were also used.

The results of econometric analyses showed that the burden of interest payments and foreign debt on the budget of the Ottoman state was unsustainable. This situation clearly shows the reason for the official bankruptcy of the Ottoman Empire, which was declared in 1875.

Although this study reveals the bankruptcy process of an important structure such as the Ottoman Empire in the historical process through econometric analyses, it also gives a very important message to today’s states. Accordingly, today’s state policies and decision-making mechanisms should take these results into account and strive to make the burden of public interest payments sustainable. It is believed that the study will shed light on the public finance policies of today’s states by drawing lessons from the collapse process of the Ottoman state.

Unlike the historical assessments in the literature on the decline of the Ottoman Empire, this study presents a cliometric approach by applying current econometric analysis techniques to past historical data. The study explains the unsustainability of the Ottoman Empire’s interest payments and external debt burden in the period under consideration in a way that, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, has not been done before.