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This study aims to investigate the role of Islamic finance in supporting sustainable economic growth, innovation and digital transformation in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. Amid global challenges like the Russia–Ukraine conflict and COVID-19, the focus extends beyond the GCC’s oil dependency to explore how Islamic finance can enable technological advancements and foster a digitally innovative economy. The research aims to reveal the potential of Islamic finance in driving economic diversification, technological progress and sustainable development in the GCC.

Using a content analysis approach, this study critically examines the economic repercussions of recent global crises, shedding light on how Islamic finance contributes to socio-economic justice and the provision of social goods in the GCC. The research synthesises findings from various secondary sources, including academic literature, reports and industry standards, to analyse Islamic finance’s role from an ethical and strategic perspective within the GCC’s evolving economic landscape.

The findings reveal Islamic finance’s potential to significantly contribute to the GCC’s economic diversification and resilience against global economic downturns. The study highlights how Islamic finance aligns with the sustainable development goals and its effectiveness in promoting ethical financial practices and socio-economic justice.

Future research should focus on global comparative studies to understand Islamic finance’s impact on sustainable development beyond the GCC. Longitudinal studies are also essential to assess the long-term effects of Islamic financial instruments on economic stability.

The research advocates for incorporating Islamic finance principles into the GCC’s economic strategies, emphasising its role in providing resilient and ethical financial alternatives conducive to sustainable development. It underscores the need for policy initiatives integrating Islamic finance to bolster socio-economic welfare and environmental sustainability.

Offering a novel perspective, this paper enriches the discourse on the contribution of Islamic finance to sustainable economic development. It presents critical insights into how Islamic finance can underpin long-term economic resilience and growth in the GCC. It provides valuable implications for academia and policymaking, particularly in emerging economies’ science and technology policy management.

This study aimed at exploring the differential effects of different corporate governance (CG) indicators on risk management practices in Islamic financial institutions (IFIs) and conventional financial institutions (CFIs) of Pakistan. It also investigated the moderating role of institutional quality (IQ) in shaping the effects of CG practices on financial institutions of Pakistan.

A sample of 57 financial institutions including commercial banks, insurance companies and Modarba companies over the period 2006–2017 is used to carry out the empirical analysis. The authors applied the robust two-step system-generalized method of moments estimator, which is also called the dynamic panel data estimator. They also built the PCA-based composite index of CG and IQ by using different indicators to investigate the moderating role of IQ. They used three proxies for risk taking, five for CG and one for Shari’ah governance. To test the validity of the instruments, they applied the Arellano and Bond’s (1991) AR (1) and AR (2) tests and the J-statistic of Hansen (1982).

The results provided strong evidence that several individual characteristics of CG and the composite index are significantly related to the operational risk, the liquidity risk and the Z-score (a proxy for solvency risk). The results also revealed that IQ significantly and substantially contributes in reducing the level of risks. Finally, the estimation results indicated that the effects of CG on risk management are significantly different at IFIs and CFIs. This differential impact is mainly attributed to the fundamental differences in business models, operational strategies and contractual obligations of both types of institutions.

The findings of this study are important for enhancing our understanding of how CG relates to risk taking in Islamic and conventional financial services industries and how good quality institutions are important for formulating the governance effects on the risk-taking behavior of financial institutions. The findings suggest that a suitable size of board should be chosen to manage the risk effectively. As the findings show that the risk-taking behavior of IFIs differs from that of CFIs, the regulators and international standard setting bodies should tailor the regulatory frameworks accordingly.

This paper is different from the existing studies in four aspects. First, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical investigation in Pakistan, which does the comparison of IFIs and CFIs while examining the impacts of CG on risk management. Second, the paper constructs the composite index of CG by considering several different indicators of governance and examines the combined effect of governance indicators on risk management process. Third, this paper adds to the growing literature on the role of IQ by investigating whether it acts as a moderator between CG structures and risk management and if yes, then whether this moderating role is different for IFIs and CFIs. Finally, the paper builds upon the existing research work on the CG effects for different types of financial institutions by proposing a single regression based analytical framework for comparing the effects across two different types of institutions, harvesting the benefits of higher degrees of freedom and avoiding/minimizing the measurement error.

The purpose of this study is to formulate a governance and regulatory framework for Islamic crypto assets (ICAs). A balanced regulatory framework is required to protect consumers and to encourage digital Islamic finance innovation.

This study focuses on Indonesia and compares it to other countries, specifically Malaysia and the UK, using statutory, comparative and conceptual research approaches.

The ICAs are permissible (halal) commodities/assets to be traded if they fulfil the standards as goods or commodities that can be traded with a sale and purchase contract (sil’ah) and have an underlying asset (backed by tangible assets such as gold). Islamic social finance activities such as zakat and Islamic microfinance activities such as halal industry are backed by ICAs. The regulatory framework needed to support ICAs includes the Islamic Financial Services Act, shariah supervisory boards, shariah governance standards and ICA exchanges.

This study only examined crypto assets (tokens as securities) and not cryptocurrencies. It used regulations in several countries with potential in Islamic finance development, such as Indonesia, Malaysia and the UK.

The ICA regulatory framework is helpful as an element of a comprehensive strategy to develop a lasting Islamic social finance ecosystem.

The development of crypto assets must be supported by a regulatory framework to protect consumers and encourage innovation in Islamic digital finance.

ICA has growth prospects; however, weak regulatory support and minimal oversight indicate weak legal protection for consumers and investors. Regulating ICA, optimising supervision, implementing shariah governance standards and having ICA exchanges can strengthen the Islamic economic ecosystem.

This study aims to examine the joint effect of accounting background and cross-membership of Islamic Supervisory Board (ISB) members on bank investment efficiency.

This study uses data collected from 36 Islamic banks across 15 countries globally, spanning the period from 2012 to 2021. This research uses an ordinary least squares regression and a comprehensive set of endogeneity and robustness tests.

The findings show a negative relationship between the accounting background of ISB members and investment efficiency. However, when ISB members with accounting backgrounds also have ISB cross-memberships, the banks exhibit high investment efficiency. These results suggest that ISB cross-membership plays a crucial role in facilitating Islamic banks’ access to timely information on investment opportunities. This enables ISB members with accounting expertise to thoroughly assess the benefits and risks associated with their investment prospects. These findings imply that ISB members with accounting backgrounds and cross-memberships have greater motivation and thoughtful considerations for making better investment decisions. Consequently, Islamic banks are better positioned to undertake high profitable investment projects, which enhance their investment efficiency.

The current study holds immense value for Islamic bank management in their selection of ISB members who possess an accounting background and cross-membership.

This study delves into a comprehensive investigation of the proficiency, underlying principles and unique characteristics exhibited by ISB members with an accounting background. Moreover, this study acknowledges the burgeoning global prominence of Islamic banks.

The purpose of this study is to extend the extant literature on the relationship between financial risk tolerance (FRT), awareness of Islamic financial principles (AWIF) and positive financial behaviour (FB) on financial satisfaction (FS) of micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) owners by principally investigating the mediating effect of access to Islamic financing (AIF) on these relationships.

A quantitative survey method of data collection through a self-administered questionnaire. The sample of 384 MSME owners was selected in which 208 questionnaires were retrieved and analysed using the partial least square structural equation modelling (SEM).

The result shows that the relationships between FRT and AIF as well as FB and AIF are not significant. However, the AWIF–AIF relationship was found to be positively significant. Moreover, only the mediating effect of AIF on the AWIF–FS relationship was established.

The result implies that AIF could strongly influence the FS of MSME owners, and the AWIF–FS relationship is better explained with sufficient AIF. However, AIF could not mediate the relationships between FRT–FS and FB–FS. Therefore, policymakers and MSME owners should emphasize on AWIF and AIF to enhance FS.

This study pioneers the examination of the mediating influence of AIF on FRT, AWIF, FB and FS of MSME owners in a single framework. Despite the importance of MSME owners on economic sustainability, literature on MSME owners' FS is lacking expressly among developing countries, particularly in Nigeria. This study also revealed new theoretical and practical knowledge by illuminating the mediating effect of AIF on AWIF–FS relationship.

Keeping in view the robust growth of Islamic banking around the globe, this study aims to comparatively analyze the association between liquidity creation and liquidity risk for Islamic banks (IBANs) and conventional banks (CBANs) in Pakistan and Malaysia over a period of 2004–2021. The moderating role of bank loan concentration on the aforementioned relationship is also studied.

Regression estimation methods such as fixed effect, random effect and generalized least square are deployed for obtaining results. Liquidity creation Burger Bouwman measure (cat fat and noncat fat) and Basel-III liquidity risk measure (liquidity coverage ratio) are also used.

The results give us insight that liquidity creation is positively and significantly related to liquidity risk in both IBANs and CBANs of Pakistan and Malaysia. This relationship has been moderated negatively (reversed) and significantly by credit concentration showing the importance of risk management and loan portfolio concentration.

It is analyzed that during the process of liquidity creation, IBANs in Pakistan faced more liquidity risk for both on and off-balance sheet transactions in the presence of moderation of loan concentration than IBANs in Malaysia necessitating strategic policy-making for important aspects of liquidity risk management and loan concentration while creating liquidity.

Such studies comparing IBANs and CBANs comparison keeping in view liquidity creation, liquidity risk and loan concentration are either limited or nonexistent.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of financial development on the economic growth of jurisdictions with systemically important Islamic finance.

The authors use several estimation methods. The primary analysis is based on the LSDVC method using a sample of 23 countries covering the period of 2000–2019.

The findings suggest that the financial sector may not be a significant factor in determining economic growth, or that it may decrease it depending on the proxy used. These results are in line with recent studies and robust across different estimation specifications and methods used.

Finance practitioners may reconsider the way they conduct their daily activities as their impact on economic growth is fading away. Similarly, policymakers should consider the role that financial development plays in economic growth alongside other factors that may influence its impact. It may be necessary to examine the moderating effects of institutional development on the relationship between finance and growth and consider the channels through which financial development can contribute to economic growth. Additionally, it would be useful to study the impact of Islamic finance on economic growth using different data sources.

Although the topic has been explored using different data sets and focusing on different samples, it has not been explored considering the impact of Islamic finance development on economic growth. Given the global appeal of the Islamic finance industry, it is worth investigating its significance for economic growth.

This study attempts to comprehensively analyze the cost Malmquist productivity index of conventional and Islamic banks in Saudi Arabia, the largest dual banking sector in the world, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study employs the novel approach of cost Malmquist productivity index, which focuses on production costs, to measure the change in cost productivity so that the actual impact of the COVID-19 pandemic could be captured.

The Saudi Central Bank has successfully mitigated the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on the Saudi banking sector by implementing several policies and services. This success is reflected in the large positive shift in the production frontier of Saudi banks. Moreover, it was found that Islamic Saudi banks were by far more productive than conventional Saudi banks during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the total cost productivity index (CMPCH) of Islamic Saudi banks starts to decline sharply in the last quarter of 2022 compared to conventional Saudi banks, indicating that Islamic banks in Saudi Arabia are suffering the most from the tighter monetary policy recently implemented by the Saudi Central Bank.

The results provide insights for policymakers and investors on how different types of banks respond differently to economic crises and monetary policy changes. Targeted support measures may be needed to ensure all banks remain productive and efficient.

To the author’s knowledge, this is the first study to use this innovative methodology to assess the impact of COVID-19 on bank performance in a dual banking sector.

This paper explores the experience of “Shari’a” as non-state law in the English courts through a historical analysis of past Islamic finance dispute resolutions (IFDRs). This paper aims to propose a conceivable scenario relating to the law applicable in international commercial contracts in the English courts with the emergence of the Hague Principles 2015.

This paper addresses several issues that have been raised in English case law: doubts about the legal nature of “Shari’a” as non-state law; the limits placed on freedom of choice of “Shari’a” law by the application of a single legal system; and the distinction between application of law and incorporation by reference of “Shari’a” in IFDRs. The paper then analyses the conformity of “Shari’a” with the provisions now used to resolve Islamic finance disputes (trade and investment) in the English courts, using an empirical analysis of The Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions standards.

The paper provides that, in theory, “Shari’a” standards could play a significant role in IFDRs after Brexit, even though a gap persists in practice because the Hague Principles 2015 have not yet been adopted by the English legal system.

The study focuses on the English courts and shows how the IFDRs could be resolved with the emergence of Hague Principles 2015 in the post-Brexit era.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper appears to be the first paper to provide a conceivable scenario relating to the future of the IFDRs in the English courts.

This study aims to explore commonalities and differences between Islamic social finance (ISF) and sustainable development goals (SDGs).

The study has adopted a qualitative library-based research method, and the secondary data is collected through the available literature on the topic.

This study concludes that the majority of SDGs are compatible with ISF. Moreover, it finds that the global ISF possesses adequate financial resources to assist Muslim majority nations in achieving some of the most critical and urgent SDGs on time.

The scope of this study is confined to examining the possible role of ISF in achieving many of the most pressing development goals aligned with the SDGs. To maintain coherence within the study’s focus, this paper makes no comparisons between the ISF and other types of endowments/charities.

This paper outlines an agenda for the ISF-led development strategy and makes some crucial recommendations on how the global ISF might potentially lead the charge of Islamic charities in achieving the SDGs in Muslim majority nations.

This paper adds original value to the available literature on the potential of ISF and SDGs in the arena of development. The paper analyses the role of ISF in achieving the SDGs.