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This research aims to explore the role played by Ijara-Murabaha Sukuk in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) that adheres to Shariah principles into Pakistan’s oil sector. It focuses on the difficulties faced by the country in terms of payment for oil procurement. It highlights the recent collaboration with ARAMCO, Saudi Arabia’s national oil company, to establish the Gwadar Refinery Project. This project aims to enhance oil production, reduce costs and increase storage capacity.

Data was collected from 379 investors who participate in Ijara-Murabaha Sukuk through a questionnaire designed to evaluate how trade finance solutions, sustainability practices, transparency measures and governance structures impact FDI that comply with Shariah principles. The study also considers the moderating role of market conditions on these factors. Smart PLS 4 software was used to analyze their influence on creating an environment conducive to Shariah-compliant FDI.

The findings reveal that if the company prioritizes shariah-compliant foreign direct investment over conventional due to underlying productive activities ensuring economic growth as well as strong compliance mechanisms ensuring transparency, the multifaceted challenges associated with oil procurement, circular deficit, foreign exchange reserves and transparency problems can be solved. The groundbreaking analysis from this study will guide the major stakeholders while developing policies to convert the most expensive and massive budget deficit sector into a contributing sector of the economy.

This is a pioneering study on the application of Ijara-Murabaha Sukuk to resolve the problem of circular deficit of oil sectors of Pakistan by issuing 51% Ijara Sukuk for enhancing the capacity for the storage of oil and producing the oil from imported crude oil. 49% murabaha sukuk for importing crude oil. Successful implementation of the Shariah-compliant ARAMCO project can open the door to foreign direct investment for Pakistan and the other third economies, meeting the “Reducing Poverty of SDGs.”

The purpose of this study is to examine the quality of reported earnings in the corporate reports of Shariah-compliant companies listed on Bursa Malaysia.

This study hypothesises that companies with Shariah compliance status have higher quality of earnings because of greater demand for and supply of high-quality financial reports. The quality of reported earnings is measured using the cross-sectional Dechow and Dichev (2002) accrual quality model. The study uses a balanced panel data of 3,048 observations from 508 companies during a six-year period of 2003-2008.

This paper finds robust evidence that Shariah-compliant companies have significantly higher earnings quality compared to other firms. The results provide support for the arguments that Shariah-compliant companies supply a higher quality of reported earnings to attract foreign investment, have greater demand for high-quality financial reporting because of their Shariah status and are subject to greater scrutiny by regulators and institutional investors.

This study contributes to the existing literature on Islamic capital market, business ethics, firms’ governance and financial reporting quality. The study would give a better understanding on issues relating to earnings quality of Shariah-compliant companies and would be especially useful for financial statement users, including investment analysts.

This paper provides evidence on the quality of earnings in Shariah-compliant companies and offers new arguments that explain why such companies possess higher quality of earnings compared to their counterparts.

Since 2004, Pakistan carried the banking sector under the umbrella of the Islamic financial paradigm, consequently the Islamic Banking Industry (IBI) placed an upright position in the banking and financial market of Pakistan. In this context, this study aims to analyze the effect of Shariah-compliant products of the IBI on the pace of economic growth in Pakistan.

The data set covered 13 Pakistani Islamic banks comprising four full-fledged Islamic banks and 9 conventional banks holdings standalone Islamic Branches, for the period 2004–2019. Considering nature of the empirical model and data set, the estimation was carried out with the Pooled Ordinary least squares estimation technique.

The findings of the study reveal that Shariah-compliant products have a positive effect on the pace of economic growth. This indication is based on the fact that five out of six Shariah-compliant products hold positive signs and are statistically significant. In addition, the empirical evidence shows that at large conventional financial sector signifies its role in the Shariah-compliant products and pace of economic growth nexus. Among the control variables, foreign direct investment, human capital, trade openness, inflation and private credit pose negative, whereas money supply and stock market capitalization have a positive effect on the pace of economic growth in Pakistan. Findings of the study points towards the fact that Shariah-compliant financing has great potential to enhance the economic growth of Pakistan therefore to touch the sustainable development goals (SDGs).

Having played a significant role in the growth process, Islamic bankers should portray a positive image of their industry to the government authorities. The government should design a public policy to encourage Islamic modes of finance at a macro level to increase the pace of economic growth and therefore SDGs realization.

Findings of the study present new insight into the application of Shariah-compliant products of IBI toward the realization of SDGs in case of Pakistan.

This study aims to provide comprehensive models that investigate the combination of both external fundamentals and internal characteristics on firm performance and if there is any difference between Shariah and non-Shariah compliant firms. The objective of this paper therefore is to analyze the significant relation between external fundamentals, internal characteristics and firm performance.

Panel data regression analyses are applied to determine significant results. It helps to control for unobserved factors of firm heterogeneity, which may result in spurious regression.

Most internal firm characteristics are found to be significant, but the same cannot be said for external fundamentals. Firm size is found to be very significant in driving both sets of firm performances. Financial distress in term of higher level of leverage is found to be a negative driver of non-Shariah-compliant firms’ performance in terms of return on asset but not for Shariah firms consistent with Islamic finance understanding. Shariah-compliant firms with higher liquidity tend to perform much better than less liquid firms, but the same is not found for non-Shariah-compliant ones.

This study is limited to the industrial production sector and compares both Shariah and non-Shariah compliant firms.

This study adds new findings to clarify the roles of external macroeconomic fundamentals and internal characteristics determinants on firm performance. Findings from this study combine relevant information on different sets of determinants on firm performance and produce empirical evidence beneficial to both sets of Shariah and non-Shariah compliant firms in the industry.

This paper fulfills the need for firms to understand the external and internal environment for continuous survival and performance. It is therefore important for firms to recognize the possible factors which may influence their performance and mechanisms to sustain their performance for long-term survival.

The purpose of this paper is to formulate ways in which Maldives could pioneer Islamic tourism on a befitting framework and financing structure as a leverage to develop its tourism industry.

The research uses qualitative approach whereby primary and empirical data on tourism practices as well as relevant laws and guidelines, issued in Maldives and in other Muslim jurisdictions of the Muslim, are analyzed. Doctrinal approach is used in analyzing secondary data on the subject.

The research reveals the potential of Islamic tourism in Maldives as well as the challenges that have constrained its development in the country. Certainty is needed in halal products, services and conducts. Codifying extant Maldives Halal Tourism Standards will establish legal framework for a standard Shariah-compliant tourism industry. Islamic financing structure enables mobilizing required funds and address financing constraints.

This research presents an insight into establishing and developing Islamic tourism industry in the Maldives. Harmonizing tourism regulations with Shariah shall bring about the required consciousness on Shariah compliance in target tourists and their desires. Private individuals can contribute in mobilizing the much needed Shariah-compliant resources to finance Islamic model resorts befitting an Islamic tourism industry.

The research puts forward proposal that identifies and recognizes a more viable Islamic financing alternative as well as Shariah-compliant regulations to pioneer the development of Islamic tourism in Maldives. The research recommends how to overcome related challenges helps government understand the proposed strategies for establishing Islamic tourism industry.

Political risk is an important determinant of portfolio returns. The basic purpose of this study is to revisit the importance of political risk in a constrained portfolio, namely, a Shariah-compliant equity portfolio (SCEP). Furthermore, the performance of such a constrained portfolio is also compared with a conventional portfolio that invests in all stocks.

The portfolios are constructed from stock-level data and invested in 61 international markets. The set of Shariah-compliant stocks is obtained with screening guidelines of Dow Jones Islamic Market indices. The weights of each constituent in both Shariah-compliant and conventional portfolios are driven by its relative exposure to political risk for the period 1996–2018.

Results show that, compared to conventional investors, Shariah-compliant investors gain substantial benefits when the allocation decision is based on political risk. A Shariah-compliant portfolio outperforms its conventional counterpart by 7.98% annually when tilted toward politically stable countries. The economic benefits further increase to 804 basis points when the portfolio allocates more funds to politically unstable countries. The tilted SCEP successfully reduces the downside risk, resulting in improved financial performance stability.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first effort of its nature to highlight the importance of political risk in the context of SCEPs.

The Saudi REIT market’s introduction in 2016 was part of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 master plan to diversify the country's sources of revenue and reform its financial sector. Despite the Saudi REIT market’s nascent state, it has experienced significant growth in a short period of time, being the largest REIT market in MENA. Saudi REITs are designed using well-established global REIT standards to facilitate efficient capital influx into commercial property investment opportunities in Saudi Arabia. The core aim of this paper is to highlight the development of Saudi REITs and empirically assess their performance over the period from December 2018 to December 2023.

Using monthly total returns in local currency (SAR), the risk-adjusted performance and portfolio diversification attributes of Saudi REITs are assessed. A series of optimal portfolios are constructed to identify the potential added-value role of Saudi REITs in a multi-asset framework.

Whilst Saudi REITs’ average annual return performance is lower than that of stocks, their annual returns are delivered with less volatility, thus giving a competitive overall risk-adjusted performance against other asset classes. This is a testament to Saudi REITs’ higher income return performance due to the fiscal-efficient framework. Further, when Saudi REITs are introduced in a stocks-bonds portfolio, they are able to improve the portfolio’s overall return whilst reducing the volatility, with their allocation in the asset mix observed to effectively scale throughout the portfolio risk-return spectrum.

Saudi REITs are an emerging investment opportunity for investors seeking exposure in a relatively stable and fast-growing MENA property market. As Saudi Arabia makes continuous reforms to improve the accessibility and transparency of its commercial property market, Saudi REITs are the most effective way to date for domestic and overseas investors to obtain exposure to the Kingdom’s property investment opportunities. Importantly, the encouraging preliminary results as identified in this paper provide valuable insight into the potential trajectory of Saudi REITs, given their significant contributing role to achieve the strategic objectives of Vision 2030.

This paper is the first empirical investigation that provides a preliminary performance validation of Saudi REITs as a listed pathway to commercial property exposure in Saudi Arabia. This study provides empirical evidence that enables more informed and practical decision-making in property investment, particularly in understanding the strategic importance of Saudi REITs within an investment portfolio.

This paper aims to examine and compare the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows on bank deposits in aggregate as well as at the level of conventional and Islamic banks in Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries. The study also tests hypotheses of direct and indirect impacts of FDI flow and FDI stock on bank deposits.

Static and dynamic panel generalized methods of moments (GMM) estimation techniques are applied to analyze a large data set of 491 commercial banks (422 conventional banks and 69 Islamic banks) across 18 MENA countries between 1993 and 2017 (12,275 year observations).

Empirical results indicate that inflowing FDI flow and FDI stock have a significant negative direct impact on deposits of MENA banks. The results lend support for the direct channel hypothesis for the effect of FDI on bank deposits and find no evidence in support of the indirect channel hypothesis. FDI inflows affect bank deposits directly via increased FDI-related excessive competition in the banking market. Deposits from conventional banks appear to be more affected than those from Islamic banks. The variation may due to the fact that Islamic banks have fewer multinational corporations (MNC) customers than conventional banks and therefore are less sensitive to fluctuations in FDI.

From this analysis, this study concludes that foreign investments have a higher productivity than local investments in MENA region. Attracting more FDI is aimed at increasing overall national productivity through competition. However, governments would be wise to enact such a policy to maximize benefits and minimize potential harm to local industry. Furthermore, FDI policy should encourage small to medium-size banks and firms (SMEs)’ participation and linkage with multinational banks and MNCs, while upgrading research and development institutions and innovation activities to help SMEs to benefit from potential spillovers from foreign presence in the industry. In addition, the linkage and connection between SMEs and foreign firms should be strengthened and promoted by government policy.

This study is the first of its kind to examine the effect of FDI inflows on bank deposits. It also provides an in-depth quantitative analysis of the impact of FDI flow and FDI stock, separately, on bank deposits for both conventional and Islamic banks. It distinguishes between direct and indirect channels through which FDI inflows may affect bank deposits. The study analyzes 25 years of panel data for 491 banks (12,275 year observations) and uses both static and dynamic panel GMM estimation techniques to analyze the data.

Initial Public Offering (IPO) is a major milestone for a company. It allows a private company to issue shares to a much broader group of investors and become public. But conclusive evidence of the driving forces behind investors’ demand is yet to be identified. Therefore, the major purpose of this study is to assess the level of investors’ demand in IPO and how investors’ demand in IPOs is affected.

The study will employ 80 IPO companies of a Muslim-majority country, Bangladesh, starting from 2013 to 2021 with application of linear and quantile regressions. Apart from that, t-test will be used to compare means of groups of Shariah-compliant and non-Shariah-compliant firms and IPOs under fixed-price and book-building mechanism.

Oversubscription is higher for IPOs issued through fixed-price method compared to book-building method, but no significant difference is found in oversubscription for Shariah firms compared to non-Shariah firms based on t-tests. The authors found IPO size, firm size, IPO risk, proportion of shares offered to public, and bank interest rate to have significant impact on the IPO demand. Some models found non-Shariah compliance status of IPO companies to be a significant factor for the investors to demand IPO. Quantile regression results found board independence to have a positive association with larger, less-subscribed firms and board size to have a negative relation with IPO demand, for smaller firms with high demand.

Future studies may apply the findings to other settings, especially into the reasons behind preference for non-Shariah-compliant firms and higher demand for IPOs during higher interest rate. Equity issuing firms and issue managers can benefit from this study by wisely deciding on the proportion of shares for public, issue size and board of director composition. Shariah considerations cannot be ignored given that more information on Shariah compliance is disseminated among investors despite current non-preference for Shariah-compliant IPOs. On the other hand, institutional investors and general investors should consider firm-specific, governance and macroeconomic factors in IPO investment. Likewise, regulators would do well to bring in quality IPOs with characteristics mentioned in this study for ensuring stability of the market.

The main contribution of the study is identifying determinants of IPO demand: faith, governance, macro issues – understanding whether one or many of the above factors drive investor demand in IPOs of a Muslim-majority country will be the main contribution.

This study aims to investigate the effect of Shariah-compliant status and Shariah regulation on initial public offering (IPO) underpricing in Pakistan.

Besides the ordinary least square’s method, this study used quantile least squares as a robust approach and stepwise regression for further analysis to investigate the underpricing phenomenon in Pakistan. Data of 84 IPOs listed on Pakistan Stock Exchange from January 2000 to December 2018 were collected to determine the impact of Shariah-compliant status and Shariah regulation on IPO underpricing.

Results of the study show that Shariah-compliant status has a negative relationship but Shariah regulation has a positive relationship with IPO underpricing. Hence, it is contended that Shariah-compliant firms have lower asset volatility and uncertainty than non-Shariah-compliant firms because of less information asymmetry, resulting in lower underpricing. These Shariah-compliant firms provide signals of high-quality IPOs as they must comply with the strict guidelines issued by the Securities Exchange Commission of Pakistan in addition to being considered as amicable by investors. Further, this study suggests that investors are more attracted to Shariah-compliant firms than non-Shariah-compliant ones.

This study’s offers limited consideration of nonfinancial and financial characteristics that could influence the decision of investors to subscribe to IPOs. Besides, future studies could consider the screening benchmarks; for instance, debt and cash may explain the intensity of IPO initial return in Pakistan.

The present work empirically investigated the influence of Shariah-compliant status and Shariah regulation on IPO underpricing in Pakistan’s IPO market, which has been scarcely covered in the existing literature.