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This study aims to investigate differences between Islamic and conventional banks in Pakistan with respect to their operational efficiency, liquidity risk and asset quality. Importantly, in addition to full-fledged Islamic and conventional banks, this study also investigates a more recently emerged breed of hybrid banks, i.e. Islamic divisions of conventional banks.

Data for the period 2011–2020 was collected from financial reports of all full-fledged Islamic banks (5), Islamic banking divisions of conventional banks (8) and conventional banks (20) in Pakistan. Logistic regressions were designed to test the proposed hypotheses.

The findings suggest that full-fledged Islamic banks are operationally less efficient and experience higher liquidity risk than conventional banks. However, the asset quality of Islamic banks is better than that of conventional banks. Next, in the robustness analysis, the authors extended the sample size by adding the Islamic divisions (window) of the conventional banks; they found almost the same result except for efficiency which turned out to be non-significantly related to bank type.

The findings are beneficial for investors, depositors, consumers and bank management in understanding the financial features of such as efficiency, liquidity and liquidity risk that separate Islamic banks from conventional banks.

The findings of this study present a clear picture to bankers and practitioners about some financial features of banking systems and depict that Islamic banks are in need to improve their liquidity risk management practices to compete with conventional banks.

The face value of nonowner-occupied real estate and business fixed assets is excluded from Zakah, according to most Fiqh scholars who argue that it has not been explicitly ordered during the lifetime of Prophet Muhammad (sas). This study aims to test the hypothesis that the role of these properties in the early Islamic economy was insignificant and, therefore, differed from today.

A qualitative historical analysis of primary Islamic sources and narrations from early Muslim historiography has been conducted to understand real estate sales and rent, construction costs and the number and size of houses owned by the Sahabah. In addition, inheritance reports and land gift records have been examined to obtain relevant information about the value of real estate. As for business fixed assets, the type, number and wealth of craftspeople as well as their tools have been analyzed to reveal their significance in comparison with today.

The findings of this study confirm the hypothesis that real estate for investment purposes and business fixed assets were quasi-non-existent during the lifetime of the Prophet (sas) and, therefore, irrelevant from a Zakah perspective.

This study intends to be a catalyst for the reconsideration of Zakah on these items of wealth and contributes to the Fiqhi discourse.

This paper aims to investigate the zakat disclosure of Islamic banks at the global level. It is important for depositors and shareholders of Islamic banks to know whether the bank is paying zakat on their behalf or not. Additionally, disclosing the calculation method used is also necessary to eliminate uncertainties resulting from ambiguous reporting that can mislead the stakeholders. This issue becomes more obvious when considering that depositors and shareholders may have different accounts with different Islamic banks, which makes it quite confusing to have multiple ways of zakat calculation or different approaches on who is the party that pays it. This study analyzes the current practices across 13 countries and recommends best practices.

The objective of the paper objective is achieved through analyzing the annual reports of 34 Islamic banks in 13 countries for the years 2014 and 2019. It further quantifies the zakat disclosure by constructing a zakat disclosure index. This index considers the disclosure of four major constituents covering the amount and the responsibility for payment, the calculation method, the involvement of the Shariah board and the zakat duty on investment account holders. For further robustness, this study is further supported by content analysis measures using the zakat word count in annual reports.

The results indicate a major issue in zakat disclosure. The overall average of disclosure index is low. Most of the banks disclose limited information about zakat, such as the amount and the responsibility for payment, in their annual reports. Less than 40% of the examined banks disclose information about the role of the Shariah board in zakat calculation, and a very limited number of banks (9%) are found to disclose enough details about the zakat calculation method. Furthermore, none of the examined banks mentions the zakat due for the investment accounts. Overall, zakat disclosure of most of the banks, whether following Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions or otherwise, are found to be not up to the expected best practices.

Among the limitations of this study is the sole dependence on annual reports of Islamic banks without considering other means that banks might be using to communicate zakat-related matters to stakeholders. Examples of such means include a website, social media and other direct or indirect marketing materials. Additionally, the results of this study shall not be overgeneralized regarding differences between countries because the sample does not include all Islamic banks in the selected country. Future research may use the proposed zakat disclosure index on a country-specific data sample.

The findings have significant implications as they raise a serious concern regarding the sufficiency of the Islamic banks’ disclosure about a core area of their responsibility, that is, the zakat. The index developed can be a tentative measure of zakat disclosure transparency pending further review. The result further suggests looking at the composition of members of Shariah boards to include at least one member with a sound accounting background. Zakat is a religious duty; therefore, a perceived lack of transparency on the amount, method of calculation and how the zakat is paid may affect the future injection of capital into Islamic banks.

An important contribution of this paper lies in the fact that the collected data is not provided in any available database. Rather, it is manually captured from the individual annual reports of reviewed Islamic banks. Further, this paper proposes an index to measure the zakat disclosure at bank and country levels.

This study aims to analyse the mechanism of trust instrument from a Shariah point of view. Analysis of the mechanism would determine the extent to which its implementation can resolve estate planning issues such as frozen estate and the issue of naming beneficiaries under the age of 18.

This is a qualitative study method through library research. To explore the mechanism of trust instrument, an in-depth interview with five participants using purposive sampling and analyses of documents were used. The selection of this sample allows the researcher to obtain specific data in their field of expertise. Therefore, two officers from the Trust Administration Department of Amanah Raya Berhad (ARB) and three Shariah advisors from ARB (MPS ARB) were interviewed to find out the mechanism of trust instrument from the Shariah perspective. The researcher also referred to the trust deed documents, ARB company policies, field case studies such nomination cases and trust accounts, articles and court cases.

The trust instrument meets Shariah requirements even though it is based entirely on the Civil Law. The comprehensive and flexible features of trust deeds can help donors to plan systematically during their lifetime.

This study only focuses on the trust instruments that are currently being implemented in the ARB. Five trust products were analysed to achieve the objectives of the study, namely, the Normal Trust, Safecare and Safecare Premium, Takaful Care, Hibah (literally “gift”) as well as Trust and Declaration of Hibah.

The implementation of trust instrument at an early stage can ensure the property is well managed through a trust deed, guarantee the life of the beloved heirs after the death of the donor and prevent the property from being frozen.

This study comprehensively describes the trust instrument from the Shariah perspective and its implementation mechanism in the industry.

The purpose of this study is to examine and review tayyiban indicators in the context of halal food production. In Islam, food produced or manufactured must be halal and tayyiban. Even though both halal and tayyiban are always mentioned together in the Quran, the halal aspect is highlighted more than tayyiban. The discussion of tayyiban’s indicators is still vague.

The study was adopted based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses for the review of the current research which used two main journal databases, namely, Web of Science and Scopus. Accordingly, the search resulted in a total of 40 articles that can be systematically examined.

The results of review of these articles formulated five main themes: safety, nutrition, cleanliness, quality and authenticity. These five indicators are considered relevant enough in the context of halal food production to build a comprehensive tayyiban concept.

This study enriches the field of halal food research. The concept of tayyiban as a whole has been given limited attention in academic literature. At the end of this study, a number of recommendations are suggested for the reference of future scholars.

The aim of this paper is to examine the strategic approach of culturally responsive and communicative teaching (CRCT) through a critical assessment of interracial teachers in their daily school interactions.

The empirical data were obtained through interviews among ten interracial teachers. The analysis was made through a thematic approach to obtain substantial data from interviews.

The findings reveal that attempts to gain sufficient comprehension of CRCT are actualized through routine interaction in the multicultural school environment hence resulting in embedding self-awareness of cultural competence in a multicultural classroom, constructing emotional and social development on cultural awareness and internalizing responsive awareness on social engagement in global learning.

The contribution of this research provides an insightful value on expanding key consideration to support the multicultural classroom environment with an active engagement and enhancement of CRCT as fundamental basis of the multicultural classroom.

Food not only satisfies the need and nourishes positive experiences but also enhances involvement with the cultural, social and environmental attributes of a destination. As urban tourism is embracing sustainable consumption practices (SCP), this study aims to explore tourist’s responsible behaviour by embracing traditional gastronomic delicacies. More specifically, it pinpoints the driving forces behind why people choose traditional gastronomic delights.

The study adopted the triangulation method involving the grounded theory approach (GTA) attained through a series of focus group discussions followed by the survey method taking an emerging economy’s perspective (India and Bangladesh). This study accords equal importance to both the demand and supply perspectives of gastronomic tourism and its stakeholders.

Critical dimensions such as travel motivation, tourist expectations, socio-economic perspectives, mindful consumption, sustainable marketing efforts and community awareness were identified as major influencers towards traditional gastronomic delicacies.

The present study bears significance to the urban developers, policymakers, marketers, regional tourism bodies and tour operators in promoting urban gastronomic cultures through marketing traditional delicacies for sustainable development of the evolving gastronomic industry in India and Bangladesh.

This study makes a novel attempt in exploring critical dimensions in an evolving gastronomic industry by blending an innovative qualitative research methodology like GTA supported by the empirical validation process (quantitative). It proposes a theoretical framework for further advancement of gastronomic and urban tourism towards a SCP.

This paper aims to investigate customer attitude towards the use of emerging social media platforms (SMPs) for promotional activities by United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based Islamic banks, particularly, in the post-COVID-19 era. The key drivers of this research include analysing, anticipating and providing recommendations to reinvigorate the marketing and promotional strategies of the UAE Islamic banks to spark renewed customer interest.

This study is anticipatory and descriptive in nature. Primary data is used to understand customer perception towards the use of emerging social media marketing tools by the UAE-based Islamic banks. Reliability, factor analysis and multiple regression analysis are applied to understand customer attitude. While focusing on the current COVID-19 scenario, the need for innovative structure is envisaged to meet the post-COVID-19 needs.

The findings of this research highlight the significance of emerging SMPs such as WhatsApp, TikTok, Pinterest, Viber, Snapchat and their application as promotional tools to inspire the purchase intention of customers in this virtual age. The results of the study reveal these emerging SMPs are predicted to be used as the preferred promotional tools for Islamic banks.

This paper is limited to the UAE Islamic banks and to a specified set of SMPs as promotional tools. Nevertheless, its findings have important implications that can be extended and validated through studying the post-COVID-19 customer attitude towards other innovative promotional tools used by commercial banks in general and Islamic banks in particular, in the GCC and Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regions.

There is currently limited available research on the innovative social media marketing techniques and promotional strategies. This study is a novel attempt to examine the adoption of the emerging SMPs as promotional tools by the UAE Islamic banks. This paper extends value to the existing studies on the impact of the pandemic on the promotional activities of the UAE Islamic banking industry. Nonetheless, while regionally specific, it is valuable in its potential application to the Islamic banking sector in the entire GCC and MENA region in the post-COVID-19 era.

This study aims to examine the correlation between the readability of financial statements and the likelihood of future stock price crashes in nonfinancial companies listed on the Egyptian Stock Exchange. It further explores the possible moderating effect of audit quality on this relationship.

The study uses ordinary least squares regression, generalized least squares estimation and two-stage least squares methodology to examine and validate the research hypotheses. The sample comprises 107 nonfinancial companies registered on the Egyptian Stock Exchange from 2016 to 2019.

The results reveal a significant negative association between the readability of financial statements and stock price crash risk. This suggests that companies with more complex financial statements tend to experience higher future crash risks. Additionally, the study identifies audit quality as a significant moderating factor. Higher audit quality, often indicated by engagements with Big-4 audit firms, strengthens the influence of financial statements readability on stock price crash risk. This implies that while high audit quality enhances investor confidence and market stability, it also accentuates the negative consequences of complex financial statements.

The findings of this paper have significant implications for regulators and standard-setting bodies in Egypt. They should consider refining and revising existing standards to emphasize the importance of enhancing the readability of financial reports. Additionally, auditing firms should actively engage in efforts to ensure clearer and more transparent financial reporting. These actions are vital for boosting investor confidence, strengthening Egypt’s capital market and mitigating potential risks associated with information opacity and complexity.

This study represents a pioneering endeavor within the Arab and Egyptian financial environments. To the best of the author’s knowledge, it is the first examination of the association between the readability of financial statements and stock price crash risk in these contexts. Furthermore, it explores factors such as audit quality that may influence this connection.