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The purpose of this paper is to propose and develop a distinct perspective from the consumer culture theory in the context of Muslim consumers, marketing and the feminist theory.

This paper is based on a critical review of the literature for insights into the consumer culture theory in the context of Muslim consumers, Islamic marketing paradigm and the feminist theory.

The study suggests that scholars in the area of marketing may consider drawing on the theory of Islamic consumer culture, film and feminist theory. This theory can be used as a platform to understand the Muslim mind and the related cultural traits to create greater engagement and interest in Malaysian horror genres among local and international audience. The Malaysian local horror genres currently have an interesting blend of Islam, local culture and gender biases addressing the universal concept of good against the evil forces, and this has the potential of offering new experiences to especially international audiences.

This study is purely theory-based and is aimed at knowledge development in this field of Islamic consumer culture. It also invites academics to engage in scholarly activities toward theory building in this area.

The study provides directions for areas of possible future research in Islamic marketing, consumer culture and film studies.

This study intends to broaden the research efforts in Islamic consumer culture marketing in terms of innovative ways to serve this growing Muslim market.

This study contributes to the discipline by providing new perspectives in Islamic consumer culture inquiry in the context of film studies.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how Muslim men in Kuwait negotiate their luxury fashion consumption (considered a feminized practice in Kuwait) without compromising their masculine identity.

The data were collected through 108 qualitative questionnaires and two unstructured in-depth interviews. Non-participant observations and informal conversations took place as part of an ongoing ethnographic study on luxury fashion consumption in Kuwait.

Within the feminized space of fashion, accessories (such as shoes, wallets, watches, sunglasses, etc.) seem to allow Muslim men an androgynous space (consumer constructions of gendered spaces to be equally masculine and feminine) to be fashionable yet maintain a masculine identity.

Further research may explore the negotiation of androgyny among men who consume luxury fashion clothing or conspicuously feminized fashion (such as jewellery and handbags) in highly gendered societies. Limitations include reliance on questionnaire data (lacks depth insights) and narrow consumer (Muslim men in Kuwait).

Marketers of luxury fashion brands in Kuwait should focus on fashion accessories when targeting males. Advertising needs to shift gender perceptions of traditionally feminine fashion (such as handbags or jewellery) towards androgyny to attract male consumers. Religiosity of consumers is an important segmentation basis, and Muslim men who are less religious may be more open towards fashion consumption.

This research proposes the notion of androgynous spaces, contributing to gender within marketing theory and practice.

The purpose of this study is to examine the factors that influence the consumer intention to adopt Islamic banking.

The study extends the theory of reasoned action (TRA) by incorporating additional variables such as government support, perceived risk, perceived image, religiosity and culture. A research instrument adapted from previous studies is administered online on a sample of 310 respondents. The data collected are subjected to exploratory factor analysis followed by structural equation modeling using SPSS and analysis of a moment structures (22.0 Version).

The results of the study reveal that consumer intention to use Islamic banking is collectively determined by attitude, religiosity, culture, government support and perceived risk. It reflects that attitude and religiosity are the major predictors of a consumer’s intention followed by government support. Furthermore, results indicate that a consumer’s attitude toward Islamic banking is determined by social influence, government support, religiosity and perceived risk. Also, it is found that culture and perceived image have no significant effect on a consumer’s attitude toward adoption of Islamic banking. Further, the results indicate that attitude mediates the effect of religiosity, perceived risk, government support and culture on a consumer’s intention to use Islamic banking.

The success of Islamic banking ultimately depends on consumer readiness and adoption of it. This study provides significant insights into various aspects of consumer attitude and intention toward Islamic banking adoption. The results provide vital inputs to policymakers and practitioners in offering and promoting Islamic banking. Also, the knowledge and understanding of key consumer specific factors can be used by banks in framing strategies for positioning and targeting Islamic banking products. The study is subjected to certain limitations such as – the study accounts only for limited factors and does not provide for factors such as pricing, behavioral control and Islamicity of the product. Second, this study is limited to the geographic area of Kashmir. Third, the study design is cross-sectional is nature.

Essentially, this study is a pioneering effort in applying an integrated TRA model to determine consumer intention to use Islamic banking in Kashmir. Furthermore, the current study examines the relationship between additional variables simultaneously within the framework of TRA. The study also explores the effect of religiosity and culture on consumer’s attitude and intention, which has remained largely unexplored in the context of Islamic banking.

The purpose of this study is to explore the acculturation caused by the Korean wave among Indonesian Muslim consumers, especially in the food and cosmetic sectors, based on religious grounds.

Data were collected through focus group interviews with 20 Muslim respondents in Indonesia.

The findings specifically highlighted that Muslim consumers’ acceptance of Korean products varied. Muslim consumers’ acceptance was influenced by similarities and differences in values between Islamic and Korean cultures. Consumers categorised into each acculturation mode (assimilation, separation, integration and marginalisation) showed different behavioural patterns in Korean product acceptance. This study proposes that global products can be optimised through specific and targeted marketing campaigns for different types of Muslim consumers with products that comply with their religious values.

Few studies have explored the importance of religious values (e.g. righteousness, compassion and respect for others) with respect to the acceptance of foreign products in the acculturation context. Additionally, how values from other cultures reconcile with the Indonesian Muslims’ affinity for Korean culture has been limitedly studied. This study aims to fill these gaps by identifying the role of religious factors in the acceptance of global products by taking the example of Indonesian Muslim consumers and Korean products.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the phenomenon of debt culture in the conventional financial systems and then to compare the existing or emerging trends in the Islamic finance industry. It provides critical insight into why economic policies that are delinked from some fundamental wisdom about sustainable lifestyle might be increasingly less effective.

The paper identifies various areas of impact of the debt culture and provides qualitative analysis based on relevant data.

The data presented in the paper shows that the Islamic finance industry is clearly biased in favor of debt-creating modes, which is expected to lead to promoting the same kind of debt culture as experienced in the conventional financial system.

Finding comprehensive and current data for Islamic financial institutions is a challenging task. The IFIs are not as transparent as their conventional counterparts in sharing relevant data and information.

The paper highlights and analyzes a problem – i.e., the debt culture. Dealing with this problem would be indispensable in the long run for any credible as well as sustainable solutions to contemporary crisis.

Debt culture is more than an economic phenomena. The paper identifies/analyzes several areas, including consumption explosion, speculation, ethics, that are related to debt culture.

This is probably the first research paper that looks into the issue of debt culture in the context of Islamic finance. The contemporary, ongoing global crisis underscores the kind of conventional problems that Islamic finance needs to avoid.

The purpose of study examine the relationship between religiosity, consumers’ materialism, brand fidelity, attitude and consumers’ commitment to Islamic banking products using evidence from Indonesia.

The sample consists of 658 Muslim and bank consumers obtained through a survey study and using structural equation modeling to test the research hypotheses.

The empirical results indicate that religiosity has significant and positive effects on consumers’ materialism, brand fidelity and attitude, also mediating variables. Furthermore, the mediator variables partially mediate religiosity and consumers’ commitment based on consumers’ culture theory.

This study is validated by Indonesian Muslims; therefore, future study is required to analyze across the culture and region. It can help Islamic bank managers and scholars to observe the correlation between religion, Islamic banks products and Muslims’ commitment.

The current study enlightened the consumers’ Islamic bank principle operation from marketing and religiosity. The government and the shariah supervisory board need to enhance the control and promote to make sure that Islamic banking operations have compliant with Islamic law.

The result of this study provided the Muslim decision-making process by developing and testing a model of religious determinants toward Islamic bank products.

This chapter aims to examine Bank Negara Malaysia’s (BNM) approach in fulfilling its financial consumer protection mandate from unfair contract terms and the statutory framework relevant for consumer protection in the domestic market. This is a qualitative-based research. Using content analysis, this study analyses BNM’s Financial Stability and Payment Systems Report from 2012 to 2016, specifically on the ‘market conduct and consumer empowerment’ to explore BNM’s prudential regulatory, supervisory and consumer protection roles in protecting bank consumers from unfair contract terms. It is found that even if a number of standards and guidelines have been issued by BNM in improving ‘fairness and transparency’, the potential risk facing bank consumers from unfair terms in standard consumer contracts of Islamic banks especially where terms may be unfair or unclear remains unchanged. This study recommends that BNM as the Central Bank and financial regulator of Malaysia promotes self-regulation of the Islamic banks by adopting value-based banking of a consumer-focussed culture in delivering an effective protection for consumers from unfair contract terms and empowering them in their dealings with Islamic banks in Malaysia. This study will be helpful in bringing a policy formulation by BNM in identifying their weak areas and suggesting improvements in pursuing a strong consumer protection agenda from unfair contract terms.

This study aims to determine the attitudes of Turkish consumers toward Islamic mobile shopping apps and discuss whether these apps will need to be designed in accordance with Islamic rules in Muslim countries or not in the sample of Turkey.

A descriptive study was used. The data was collected online through a questionnaire form. The one-sample t-test and univariate analysis of variance were used to analyze the data obtained from 379 individuals.

The results show that Turkish customers have mostly positive attitudes toward Islamic mobile shopping apps and demand that the pictures, videos and advertisements used on mobile shopping apps be in concordance with Islamic rules. As a result of this study, consumers do not mind the colors or lean toward the use of models on Islamic mobile shopping apps. Furthermore, there are differences between gender with regard to using Islamic mobile shopping apps, showing that male consumers have a more positive attitude toward Islamic mobile shopping apps compared with female consumers.

Like many previous empirical studies, this study has limited its context to capture a particular geographical area. Moreover, in this study, the data are obtained by judgmental sampling as a nonrandom sampling method. The contributions of the current study are restricted to Islamic mobile apps for the hijab clothing sector in Turkey.

The results obtained can become a yardstick to measure consumer attitudes toward Islamic mobile apps’ attributes.

The primary benefit is to call the attention of mobile app designers to the design features of mobile shopping apps aimed at Muslim users. The second benefit is to determine the expectations of Muslim users regarding the design of Islamic mobile shopping apps, and eventually establish the fundamental Islamic design features needed to be available on new Islamic mobile shopping apps.

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether including an Islamic appeal in a culture-neutral product advertisement has a positive effect on consumer attitudes to the advertisement leading to higher purchase intentions while considering religious affiliation and religiosity as moderating factors of the relationship.

Conditional process analysis was applied to examine the mediation of the relationship between ad version and purchase intention through attitude to the advertisement as well as the moderating role of religious affiliation and religiosity among 819 consumers within the Dubai market.

The analysis in this paper revealed that including an Islamic appeal in an advertisement does not have a positive effect on attitude to the advertisement or purchase intention, neither for Muslim consumers in general nor for Muslim consumers with high levels of religiosity. Conversely, including an Islamic appeal has a significant negative effect on the purchase intentions of Christian consumers within the Dubai market, as well as on those consumers who did not state their religious affiliation.

Marketers should reconsider the use of Islamic appeals in product advertising, especially in relation to the promotion of culture-free products within diverse expatriate populations such as that represented by the Emirate of Dubai.

This study sheds light on the underexplored role of religious affiliation and religiosity in relationship to consumer behavior within the field of Islamic marketing in a major retail hub in the Middle East.

The purpose of this paper is to bring together the thoughts and opinions of key members of the Journal of Islamic Marketing's (JIMA) Editorial Team, regarding the recently branded phenomenon of Islamic marketing – in the interests of stimulating further erudition.

The authors adopted an “eagle eye” method to investigate this phenomenon: Where attempts were made to frame general principles and observations; alongside a swooping view of key anecdotal observations – in order to ground and enrich the study. The authors participated in an iterative process when analysing longitudinal and contemporary phenomenological data, in order to arrive at a consensus. This was grounded in: triangulating individual and collective researcher findings; critiquing relevant published material; and reflecting upon known reviewed manuscripts submitted to marketing publications – both successful and unsuccessful.

The authors assert that a key milestone in the study and practice of marketing, branding, consumer behaviour and consumption in connection with Islam and Muslims is the emergence of research wherein the terms “Islamic marketing” and “Islamic branding” have evolved – of which JIMA is also a by‐product. Some have construed Islam marketing/branding as merely a niche area. Given the size of Muslim populations globally and the critical importance of understanding Islam in the context of business and practices with local, regional and international ramifications, scholarship on Islamic marketing has become essential. Western commerce and scholarship has been conducted to a limited extent, and some evidence exists that research is occurring globally. The authors believe it is vital for “Islamic marketing” scholarship to move beyond simply raising the flag of “Brand Islam” and the consideration of Muslim geographies to a point where Islam – as a way of life, a system of beliefs and practices, and religious and social imperatives – is amply explored.

An “eagle eye” view has been taken, which balances big picture and grassroots conceptual findings. The topic is complex – and so while diverse expert opinions are cited, coverage of many issues is necessarily brief, due to space constraints.

Scholars and practitioners alike should find the thoughts contained in the paper of significant interest. Ultimately, scholarship of Islam's influences on marketing theory and practice should lead to results which have pragmatic implications, just as research on Islamic banking and finance has.

The paper appears to be the first to bring together such a diverse set of expert opinions within one body of work, and one that provides a forum for experts to reflect and comment on peers' views, through iteration. Also the term Crescent marketing is introduced to highlight how critical cultural factors are, which shape perceptions and Islamic practises.