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The purpose of this study is to identify the determinants of the intended use of Islamic banking and financial services by US Muslims. It builds on the plethora of studies primarily conducted in Muslim-majority countries.

An extended theory of planned behavior model was tested using structural equation modeling. The hypothesized paths were positive attitude, positive subject norms, perceived behavioral control, greater Islamic religiosity and lower perceived cost of being Muslim. A sample size of n = 251 was analyzed.

The analysis showed that positive attitudes toward Islamic financial services were found to be statistically significant (p < 0.001), and its path was the strongest. The higher Muslim identification path was trending toward being statistically significant (p < 0.086). The analysis also showed that lower perceived cost of being Muslim path was statistically significant (p < 0.035), but in the opposite hypothesized direction. No support was found for the effect of positive subjective norms or perceived behavior control hypotheses.

The study was exploratory in nature and has limitations, including some discriminant validity problems.

The paper includes recommendations for US Islamic banking and financial services providers to develop more effective market segmentation and targeting, as well as integrated marketing communication strategies.

This paper fulfills a void in research on Islamic marketing in the West, particularly the USA, a country with a nominal Muslim population.

Islamic financing is based on the ideology of Islam, proposing a different economic system than capitalism. The essence of Islamic financing lies in trading of goods, provision of services and/or investment under profit and loss sharing. This study aims to examine legal forms and economic substance of the contracts used by the Islamic financial industry.

To conclude on the objectives of the study, five most widely used contracts (modes/products), including Murabaha, Ijarah, Diminishing Musharaka, Sukuk and Mudaraba (deposits), were selected to test against the theory of the Islamic financial system.

It is found in the process that legally (legal form) contracts/products are in line with theory; however, economic substance is not very different from conventional counter parts.

Through application of alternative calculation measures/methods and proper training of human resources, Islamic financial institutions can shift economic substance of contracts in line with the theory of Islamic finance.

Islamic finance is an emerging area, and reasonably good amount of literature is available; however, perhaps, this is the only piece of work focusing on calculation methods, contributing in economic substance of contracts, being used in modern Islamic finance in addition to legal form as per essence of Islamic financial system.

The distinctive feature of Islamic financial intermediation is its foundation on profit-and-loss sharing which reinforces solidarity and fraternity between partners. Thus, the bank margin and its determinants may differ between Islamic and conventional banks (CBs). The purpose of this paper is to empirically assess the main factors that explain the bank margin in a panel of Islamic and CBs operating in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. This study will permit to identify the common and the specific determinants of the intermediation margins in dual banking systems.

The authors use a dynamic panel approach. The empirical analysis is carried out for a sample of 50 Islamic banks (IBs) and 126 CBs from 14 MENA countries.

The results reveal that net profit margins of IBs may be explained for the most part by risk aversion, inefficiency, diversification and economic conditions. With regard to CBs, their margins depend positively on market concentration and risk aversion and negatively on specialization, diversification, inefficiency and liquidity.

The significant impact of the degree of diversification on margins suggests that any policy analysis of the pricing behavior of banks should rely on its whole output. The high levels of margins in Islamic and CBs based in the MENA region may represent an obstacle to these countries to pursue their development process. Thus, policy makers in these countries should consolidate the role of capital markets and nonbanking financial institutions to provide alternative sources of funding and stimulate more competition.

The positive relationship between concentration and net interest margins requires that policy makers should create competitive conditions if they want to lower the social cost of financial intermediation. The creation of competitive conditions may be achieved through encouraging the establishment of new domestic banks or the penetration of foreign banks.

The present study aims to contribute to the existing literature on the determinants of bank margins in three ways. First, the authors identify the factors that most explain bank margins for both conventional and IBs. The majority of previous studies examine the determinants of the profitability or the overall performance of banks and in particular conventional ones. Second, this paper employs two generalized method of moments (GMM) approaches introduced by Arellano and Bover (1995) and Arellano and Bond (1991). It differs from Hutapea and Kasri (2010) who employed the co-integration technique to examine the long-run relationship between Islamic and CB margins and their determinants in Indonesia. Third, unlike previous studies focusing on MENA region that use a small number of countries and a short sample period, the period of study covers 16 years from 1999 to 2014 and a large sample of countries (14 countries). This paper differs from Lee and Isa (2017) who applied the dynamic two-step GMM estimator technique introduced by Arellano and Bond (1991) to study the determinants of intermediation margins of Islamic and CBs located in Malaysia.

The main objective of this study is to identify the main determinants of the Islamic banks’ performance in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) regions.

The research uses both static model (fixed effects and random effects) and Generalized method of Moments (GMM). The data for this study are obtained from the annual reports of 29 Islamic banks from GCC countries using Bankscope database for the period from 2005 to 2013.

The empirical findings reveal that Islamic banks’ specific factors such as the equity financing and bank size are positive and statistically significant to the profitability of Islamic banks. The operating efficiency ratio is negatively and statistically significant to return on asset. It is also found that macroeconomic variables such as money supply and inflation are negatively and statistically significant to the performance of Islamic banks whereas oil price has been found positive and statistically significant to the performance of Islamic banks in the GCC region.

The present study seeks to fill a demanding gap in the literature by providing new empirical evidence on the factors that influence the profitability of the Islamic banking sector in GCC regions.

These findings have significant contribution to the literature by comprehensively clarifying and critically analyzing the current state of profitability among the Islamic banks in GCC regions.

In an Islamic environment, the behavior of the Muslim firm is different from that of the non‐Muslim. The Muslim firm ultimate objective is not only to maximize profit but also to enrich his love of hereafter and for achieving (falah) or success by sacrificing part of his profit for the benefit of the Muslim society (according to the degree of faith he possesses). This study aims to answer the following question: How does care for the good of the society influence the Muslim firm decisions? The answer to that question has been answered by formulating an objective function of the Muslim firm and deriving the optimally necessary conditions for maximization.

Malaysia is recognised as an emerging country with a large Muslim population, making the Malaysian Takaful industry the largest Takaful market in the Southeast Asia region and, notably, one of the fastest growing markets globally. Malaysia is also the first country globally to implement a risk-based capital framework for Takaful. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to identify the factors that influence the efficiency level (cost efficiency and technical efficiency) of the Takaful industry and to examine the effects of Takaful insurance firms’ specific factors and corporate governance factors that influence the efficiency of Takaful insurance in Malaysia.

In this paper, the efficiency level of the Malaysian Takaful industry was examined between 2011 and 2015. The sample consisted of 11 family Takaful and 8 general Takaful operators. Two-stage Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was used by first, conducting non-parametric frontier data envelopment analysis to obtain a DEA score for each operator. This was followed by panel regression with the DEA scores as the dependent variable and the insurance firms’ specific factors and corporate governance factors as the independent variables.

The results of DEA indicate that Takaful operators in general have allocative inefficiency but family Takaful is more cost efficient than general Takaful. Results of panel data analysis reveal that corporate governance factors do influence the cost efficiency but find no evidence on the firm-specific factors towards the cost efficiency and technical efficiency on Takaful operators. Board size and the proportion of non-executive directors impose a negative and significant relationship with cost efficiency, while proportion of Muslim directors in the board is not significant.

This paper focused solely on Malaysia which uses strict regulations governing the Takaful insurance market. Due diligence was also performed to minimise any limitation in the paper. It is proposed that future studies should examine this issue in greater detail by incorporating more data from other Muslim countries.

The findings of this paper have significant implications for policymakers to understand the efficiency condition in the Takaful market. Takaful operators should maintain a small board size with a higher proportion of executive directors, given they could improve the level of effective decision-making to enhance the cost efficiency. As corporate governance factors are significant, Takaful operators in Malaysia should also undertake transparent disclosure practice and reporting such as providing adequate and relevant information related to Shariah compliance and principles to provide a robust foundation as the Takaful market leader regarding Takaful regulations globally.

The consumer is able to make a better decision when choosing Takaful insurance company to protect their interests.

No similar paper has been undertaken to the best of the researcher’s knowledge using similar research design and scope to investigate the efficiency of Takaful insurance as in this paper. Takaful insurance is a rapidly growing industry in Malaysia, setting a prime example to other countries globally. Malaysia was selected for this study, as it is the only nation that has implemented the most extreme regulation in the Takaful insurance market.

The purpose of this monograph is to present the first English translation of a unique French colonial report on women living under colonial rule in West Africa.

The issue begins with a discussion of the contribution this report makes to the history of social development policy in Africa, and how it serves the on‐going critique of colonisation. This is followed by the English translation of the original report held in the National Archives of Senegal. The translation is accompanied by explanatory notes, translator’s comments, a glossary of African and technical terms, and a bibliography.

The discussion highlights contemporary social development policies and practices which featured in identical or similar forms in French colonial social policy.

As the report demonstrates, access to basic education and improving maternal/infant health care have dominated the social development agenda for women in sub‐Saharan Africa for over a century, and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future in the Millennium Development Goals which define the international community’s agenda for social development to 2015. The parallels between colonial and post‐colonial social policies in Africa raise questions about the philosophical and cultural foundations of contemporary social development policy in Africa and the direction policy is following in the 21st century.

Though the discussion adopts a consciously postcolonial perspective, the report that follows presents a consciously colonial view of the “Other”. Given the parallels identified here between contemporary and colonial policy‐making, this can only add to the value of the document in exploring the values that underpin contemporary social development practice.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the benefits of starting Islamic microfinance (IMF) in India and the core concepts of IMF.

Methodology of the paper is exploratory in nature and analysing of a new concept for implementation.

The brief findings have been that Indian masses, especially the poor minority community and lower middle class, are in a pathetic situation financially, as per survey analysis. IMF can play a very critical role in providing deliverance from financial slavery.

Limitations of the paper have been that the survey was done in a limited area and within a particular community and financial background.

Research finding of the paper demonstrates a practical roadmap or a blueprint on the need of starting IMF in India.

Social implications of the paper are that if the research findings are implemented and IMF were to be offered in India, the mass suicides committed specially by the Indian farmers can be contained to a great extent and can be virtually stopped.

The paper is original in concept, as IMF is totally new to the Indian scenario, and the paper is of high value for regulators to seriously think on initiating the IMF machinery in India for the benefit of all Indians.

This study aims to examine the interactive effect of the push factor from the conventional bank, the pull factor from the Islamic bank and the internal mooring factor of the customers in influencing the switching behavior of two types of customer account holders, the conventional only and the mixed (conventional and Islamic bank) account holders, from the services marketing mix perspective.

This study applied an explanatory research design. The data were collected via an online survey from 1,171 Muslim participants; participants consisted of conventional only account holders, Islamic bank only account holders and mixed (conventional and Islamic bank) account holders. The data were mainly analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Based on the account, the results showed that the three types of customers differ significantly in terms of the effect of the push, pull and mooring factors. The study also showed that the mooring factor, which is internal to the customer, is the most significant factor that inhibits customers from migrating to Islamic banks. The effect was observed for both conventional customers and those who hold mixed accounts.

The study was conducted via an online survey, which reduces the representativeness of the sample. In addition, most respondents were urban dwellers and well educated, which might not represent the banking behaviour of Indonesian Muslim customers in general.

The study implies that to attract the conventional only account holder, Islamic banks should first weaken the mooring factors (the internal characteristics of the customers) that inhibit customers from switching to an Islamic bank.

The main contribution of the study is that it simultaneously identifies the push, pull and mooring factors that have the most significant impacts on Muslim customers' switching behavior from a conventional to an Islamic bank.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the Islamic character of entrepreneurial activity along with its systemic, ideological and ethical particularities in contrast to the tech-based entrepreneurial model of Silicon Valley.

Hollingsworth’s framework of institutional analysis is used to analyze and compare the institutional design of tech-based entrepreneurship originated in Silicon Valley with the Islamic alternative.

An ideal Muslim entrepreneur will have a service-oriented-collectivist mindset, as opposed to an individualistic-self-centric mindset, where solving problems for all stakeholders is a priority instead of profit maximization at the expense of other stakeholders. A Muslim entrepreneur while ensuring the financial sustainability of the firm would avoid complexity on a systemic level, thus would adopt a personalized-family-like atmosphere. A Muslim entrepreneur will also constructively engage local stakeholders and will not possess a disintegrating tendency toward the local social structures.

The paper can help Muslim entrepreneurs to critically evaluate their entrepreneurial activities and firm design in contrast to the contemporary tech-based model.

A number of papers already have discussed the features of an Islamic model of entrepreneurship, however, none has done so while sequentially comparing the Islamic alternative with the contemporary model using Hollingsworth’s framework of institutional analysis. In this paper, the resulting model of Islamic entrepreneurship can be clearly evaluated and contrasted, feature by feature, with its tech-based counterpart.