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This paper reviews economic and finance research on Islamic investments. In the course of our review, we focus on the following issues: the performance of Islamic stock indexes, Islamic finance–growth nexus and Islamic real-estate investment trust market.

This literature survey consists of two stages such as random and systematic. It begins with a random search of articles with the intention to explore the three different areas of Islamic banking and finance. In order to maintain some level of quality of the literature review, we explored inside citations of articles based on relevant and recent articles from SCOPUS and Web of Science.

This paper represents an attempt to organise current research on Islamic stock markets, Islamic finance-growth nexus and Islamic real-estate finance: (1) the first prevailing finding is that Islamic stock indices are less volatile than conventional stock indices; (2) most empirical studies regarding Islamic finance–growth nexus focus on the impacts of banking sectors on growth and neglect other segments of the Islamic financial market; (3) based on our review of existing studies, there is no unanimous model for Islamic home financing in Islamic banks.

The mixed findings in this area hinder the understanding of Islamic investment and prevent identifying trends that support decision-making. Our review provides suggestions for prospective research directions. Most empirical studies regarding Islamic finance–growth nexus focus on the impacts of banking sectors on growth and neglect other segments of the Islamic financial market.

There is no literature review on Islamic finance-growth nexus and Islamic real-estate literature. Therefore, we are going to fill this gap to review these three different aspects of Islamic banking and finance.

This paper aims to survey the screening practices and regulatory arrangements that can be gleaned from the experience of Islamic financial indices on international stock markets. Such indices can be regarded as experiments in the demarcation of “pockets” of Sharī‘ah-compliant securities exchange, in the context of non-Sharī‘ah-compliant stock markets. They offer valuable regulatory precedent, with a view to the development of a transnational domain of Islamic financial transactions.

The paper leverages the experience of Islamic financial indices for charting the fault lines between the foundational principles of Islamic finance, and those of interest-based investment commonly accepted on international financial markets. It subsequently reviews the most salient regulatory arrangements in place for discriminating between permissible and forbidden securities and modes of trading, as implemented on Islamic financial indices. These include selection criteria for index inclusion, and Sharī‘ah committees with ex ante and ex post supervisory duties.

The paper makes a case for viewing Islamic finance indices on international capital markets as capacity-building experiments for the regulation of transnational Islamic financial flows.

The study rejuvenates the pragmatic approach towards the development of Islamic capital markets, by suggesting that incremental organisational innovations, as developed in connection with Islamic financial indices, can build institutional capacity towards an economy that abides by Islamic values.

Several studies link Islamic finance to economic growth. There are at least two major limitations in these investigations. First, the proxy used to measure Islamic finance may not represent the whole impact of Islamic finance on economic growth because it only considers a subset of variables like Islamic banks’ deposits or sukuk issuance, etc. Second, it is difficult to extrapolate findings to other markets because most studies were conducted in just one nation or a small group of countries. Overcoming these issues is the driving force behind this research. In doing so, the study aims to use the overall Islamic Financial Development Index as a proxy for Islamic finance. The index measures the quantitative growth, knowledge, corporate social responsibility, governance and awareness of the Islamic financial sector.

Using a panel data set of 67 countries starting from 2012 to 2020, this study investigates the relationship between Islamic finance and economic growth.

The authors find that Islamic finance contributes to economic growth. This connection is more robust in Muslim and developing nations than it is in non-Muslim and developed nations.

To promote a country’s economic growth, the authors propose that regulators should focus on development of Islamic finance. To increase the reach of Islamic products, the government should take initiatives to raise public awareness of Islamic finance.

The findings imply that Islamic finance may have a more significant impact on socio-economic development in countries with a higher concentration of Muslim population and those in the developing stage. It highlights the potential role of Islamic finance in addressing socio-economic challenges and promoting inclusive growth in these regions.

This is the first study to use a more comprehensive sample of countries, covering both Muslim and non-Muslim nations, as well as both developing and developed nations. In addition, this study, unlike its predecessors, used a more robust and comprehensive index of Islamic finance developed by Thomson Reuters.

The purpose of this paper is to indicate the current state of studies on Islamic finance and management through a bibliometric analysis of the only social science citation index (SSCI)-indexed journal in this field.

The paper uses a bibliometric analysis, collecting data from the 319 papers published in the International Journal of Islamic and Middle Eastern Finance and Management (IMEFM) from 2008 to 2019. Moreover, VOSviewer software has been used to illustrate the citation analysis (including most cited papers, most cited authors and authors’ affiliated institutions and countries) and the keyword map.

The number of papers published in each issue of the IMEFM is found to have significantly increased owing to its unique situation being the only SSCI-indexed journal in this domain. The share of the empirical researches in total papers published annually has steadily risen, reaching 95% in 2019. In terms of case countries, although Malaysia is the most examined country in the papers, other countries such as Indonesia and Turkey are found to have been used as a case country by researchers recently. Islamic banking-related papers are the most prevalent studies, as expected, with mainly their performance being examined. Meanwhile, the number of papers about Islamic social financial institutions has notably grown in recent years. Finally, technology-based initiatives such as crowdfunding and cryptocurrencies are noted to have not yet been the subject of any paper.

The main contribution of this study is its analysis of the only SSCI-indexed journal on Islamic finance and management using bibliometrics. Also, all the papers published in the journal have been reviewed in terms of methodology, case country/country groups and topics/subtopics to lead the way for future research.

The purpose of this study is to highlight key issues pertaining to making use of Islamic equity indices and proposing possible solutions to address the problems faced in advancement of the concept of Shariah investing (SI) with the aim to advance the discourse on the subject.

Online focus group discussion (FGD) was carried out in which ten Islamic finance researchers and analysts belonging to institutions considered as authority on the subject matter participated to share their viewpoints on Islamic equity indices. Content analysis on the collected data of FGD was carried out which has revealed six key themes.

Six broader themes were identified based on the analysis of FGD, which includes criteria for constructing Islamic equity indices, utilization of Islamic equity indices for comparison with conventional stock indices, stock market efficiency perspectives, reason for integration of different equity markets, investors’ awareness of SI and future directions of Islamic equity indices. Results of the study indicate that Islamic finance researchers and analysts opined that there is a need for revising the criteria for construction of Islamic equity indices. There are conflicting viewpoints regarding performance and efficiency of Islamic indices in comparison with conventional indices and main reasons for stock market integration are trade liberalization, globalization and other factors. Moreover, there is a need for making investors and other market players aware about the attractiveness of Islamic indices from investing point of view.

Based on this extensive literature review and as highlighted by Masih et al. (2018) in their recap of literature on Islamic equity indices indicating that there are bulk of empirical studies carried in the past in the domain, however, there is a dearth of theoretical and qualitative studies. Hence, this preliminary qualitative study not only makes theoretical contribution but also deploys FGD, which is rarely used in the similar context, and offers candid views of the participants on key issues pertaining to Islamic equity indices. This lends novelty to this study.

The purpose of this paper is to apply technical analysis to some leading Islamic indices and explore if these indices are amenable to the same kind of analysis as applied to conventional indices and whether technical analysis, in contrast with fundamental analysis, produces distinct or superior return.

In this paper, some basic tools of TA to Dow Jones Islamic Market US Index (IMUS) is applied in comparison with the three major market indices: Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 Index and NASDAQ 100. For TA, we apply moving averages, MACD and Stochastics as indicators. The paper is written particularly for those with interest in Islamic finance, but not necessarily familiar with TA. This paper thus also explores some Shariah-related issues in effectively applying TA.

The comparative analysis shows that the performance based on IMUS can be improved, when TA is applied.

Robust tools of TA play an important role in market research. This paper probably is the first to apply TA in the context of Islamic finance. Because the scope of this paper is limited (only Dow Jones Islamic USA Index and comparison with three leading market indices), more in-depth research is needed and possible, which it is hoped this paper will encourage.

The successful application of the basic TA tools to Islamic index will encourage the practitioners of Islamic finance to research and explore further uses and effectiveness of TA on other Islamic products.

This paper is probably the first application of TA to Islamic finance markets, written especially for those who take active interest in the financial market from Islamic perspective.

The purpose of this study is to provide quantitative information on the growth of Islamic finance literature. The study focused on publishing trends, countries producing research on Islamic finance, key authors, major contributing organizations, authorship patterns, keywords and articles with the highest citations.

Bibliometric analysis is applied to analyse the growth and publishing trends in Islamic finance literature. The Web of Science (WoS) database was used to extract bibliometric data covering the period 1939–2019 for Islamic finance literature.

The study finds that Islamic finance research has gained remarkable momentum in the literature. However, such growth is largely manifested in Malaysia because of a conducive atmosphere for this type of research. Interestingly, the study finds that the three most productive journals are located in the UK and Malaysia, while Professor M. Kabir Hassan from the University of New Orleans, the USA appears to head the list of authors with 23 publications on Islamic finance.

This study provides up-to-date literature on the current state of Islamic finance in the world; as a result, it supports the development of policies by the Islamic finance industry. The findings of the study also serve as a reference point for Islamic finance training and educational institutions.

Islamic finance is an emerging financial discipline; as such, there is a need for more awareness of this financial system in the world. Muslim-majority countries, especially Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Pakistan and Bahrain, have to include Islamic finance in their curriculum and establish research institutions and research journals. In addition, Arabic language journals should be indexed in WoS and/or Scopus to provide a high-quality publication platform. This study provides a more comprehensive bibliometric analysis on the growth of Islamic finance literature (1939–2019) in the WoS database; most of the prior studies have covered relatively few areas of focus and a lower range of years in some cases.

This paper aims to expand the literature on performance and volatility of Islamic funds and indices in comparison to their conventional unscreened counterparts, by studying the Moroccan case considering the recent introduction of Islamic finance in the country toward the end of 2015.

As there are still no Shariah-compliant indices in Morocco, the authors first applied four Shariah screening methodologies of some of the world leading equity index providers (i.e. Dow Jones, FTSE, S&P and MSCI) to screen the public listed companies in Casablanca Stock Exchange for Shariah compliance. Next, the authors constructed four Islamic float-weighted indexes for which they modeled the dynamic volatility using an extension of the AutoRegressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity models, namely, EGARCH(1,1).

The findings show that the screening process resulted in a well-diversified universe of Shariah-compliant stocks (25.6 per cent) to invest in. Furthermore, it is found that constructed Islamic indices outperformed the broad-based Moroccan All Shares Index (MASI) during the considered period of analysis (January 2013 to December 2014), and their long-run volatility is higher. This indicates that investors in Shariah-compliant stocks do not sacrifice financial performance for their risky investment. The estimates of the model show that volatility for the MASI is more persistent and takes longer time to die, and the leverage effect is positive for all indices, meaning that volatility of indexes’ returns is influenced more by good news than bad news, a result that is in contrast to other studies for developed countries.

On the arrival of the new banking law that introduced Islamic finance for the first time in Morocco, the authors suppose that these results could be very helpful for the Moroccan financial authorities in consideration with the construction of Islamic equity indices for Muslim investors seeking to invest ethically in accordance to their religious convictions but also for index funds managers and other equity market players.

The present study is the first of its kind in Morocco to construct Islamic indices using Shariah screening methodologies for which the volatility is modeled using an EGARCH(1,1) dynamic volatility model.

The purpose of the study is to measure cross-country stock market correlation and volatility transmission during the global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The paper traces trajectory of Islamic equity investments in order to get insights on the behavior of the markets during the crisis.

The paper uses generalized method of moments (GMM), autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) and multivariate GARCH (MGARCH) models for analysis of dynamic causality, stock market cointegration, correlation and volatility transmission between Islamic stock indices.

The result of normal correlation analysis on the share indices show the markets move together. The result of ARDL cointegration test shows the markets returns are cointegrated as a group. To further make sense of the data; the indices were grouped into four different categories, then cointegration tests were conducted. The results of the analysis show that the subgroups are cointegrated except the low COVID-19 subgroup. Based on MGARCH findings, the possibility of volatility transmission between markets during the crisis is high. The market returns indices show the usual herd mentality common during the period of crisis.

Unlike other works in this area, this paper attempt to trace the trajectory of Islamic equity investment in order to get relevant insights and arrives at appropriate ways of responding to the crisis.

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.