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This study aims to validate a potential synergistic venture between cash waqf (Islamic endowment) institutions (CWIs) and financial cooperatives (FCs) in the provision of affordable Islamic home financing (IHF) in Malaysia.

The study adopted semi-structured interviews with ten experts to validate the cash waqf-financial-cooperative-mushārakah mutanāqiṣah (CWFCMM) model. Thematic analysis technique was used to analyse the verbatim texts.

The findings show that the majority of the informants have positive perceptions of the potential of the CWFCMM model to provide financially affordable IHF products in Malaysia. Nevertheless, this study sheds light on the varying degrees of latent issues and challenges that might arise in the implementation of this model. For example, FCs need to practice the correct business model, implement good governance structures and employ the right people. Meanwhile, CWIs need to work on their accountability issues by publishing their audited accounts in mainstream newspapers, much like what is being done by non-governmental organisations such as the widely recognised Malaysian Medical Relief Society (MERCY Malaysia).

This study interviewed a small, industry-specific number of informants in generating its findings. Time and budget constraints are some of the limiting factors in carrying out the study. Because of these factors, the generalisation of the study’s findings will be limited.

First, the CWFCMM model offers an alternative, financially affordable IHF instrument to low- and middle-income households in Malaysia. Second, the involvement of third-sector institutions such as FCs and CWIs in the provision of IHF will reduce the burden of the government in its spending on home financing solutions for civil servants. Third, this model will harness the potential of waqf-based financing beyond the contemporary limited applications to mosques, graveyards and taḥfīẓ (Qurʾan memorization) schools.

This study presents an alternative IHF model that transcends the current institutional framework that is heavily dominated by Islamic commercial banks and government-owned home financing institutions. The study does not focus on a single third-sector institution but on an integration of at least two of them, CWIs and FCs, in implementing the IHF model.

This paper aims to examine the existing practices and pertinent issues affecting Islamic banks and their customers in abandoned housing projects (AHPs) to ensure compliance with Sharīʿah and statutory requirements.

This study employs the qualitative research method using the inductive approach to analyze both primary and secondary data and sources. Data collection involved a series of semi-structured interviews with five volunteering Islamic banks and a representative of Abandoned Property Owners Association Malaysia (Victims). Statutory acts, regulatory policies, guidelines, directives and standards were also analyzed.

The result indicates developer’s default, underlying contracts, regulatory arbitrage and bureaucracy, attitudinal disposition of customers and sell-then-build approach as major factors of AHP’s conundrum.

This study has suggested both short- and long-term solutions based on the principles of justice, public interests and removal of hardship to resolve and effectively manage financial hardship indebtedness arising from housing abandonment. Further, part of the proposed solutions would also reshape housing development policies and home financing transactions.

The quest for this research demonstrated Islamic banking industry’s initiatives to find lasting solutions to perennial issues of AHPs.

This paper aims to investigate sale with the temporary exclusion of usufruct, a format debated in classical Islamic jurisprudence. More specifically, it examines the application of this sale format in the diminishing partnership arrangement used by American Finance House LARIBA to finance house purchases. It analyzes the Sharīʿah issues and assesses the risks involved.

The research is qualitative, surveying and critically analyzing classical fiqh literature and contemporary juristic resolutions, as well as LARIBA’s financing documents. Finally, it systematically surveys the associated risk factors, first qualitatively, and then by quantifying them.

The research concludes that sale with the temporary exclusion of usufruct is a valid contract in Islamic law. When the usufruct is priced at market rate, the financing arrangement is genuinely Islamic and brings added value. Moreover, it is very effective in addressing risks for Islamic banks, particularly in countries with legal systems not designed to accommodate Islamic finance.

This study systematically examines all aspects of a contract that has not received sufficient academic attention, that has been underutilized by the Islamic finance industry and that is more fitting for implementation than many of the contracts currently being used.

Small and medium enterprises’ (SMEs) capital structure and financial policies are important areas of policy concern. Only a limited number of studies on capital structure have, however, been conducted on SMEs, and this deficiency is particularly evident when investigating what influences funding decisions around Islamic finance. This paper accordingly aims to investigate whether Omani SME owner-managers’ intention to adopt Islamic finance is influenced by their knowledge of Islamic finance, their own characteristics and/or their firms’ characteristics.

The authors administered a questionnaire survey via face-to-face interviews to 385 SME owner-managers operating in Muscat, Oman’s capital city. The Kruskal–Wallis one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) non-parametric test was used to analyse the questionnaire survey data.

The findings indicate that while SME owner-managers’ Islamic financial knowledge and personal characteristics do influence their intention to adopt Islamic finance, their firms’ characteristics have no significant influence on SME owner-managers’ decisions to accede to Islamic financing.

The research’s first limitation is that it gathered data from SME owner-managers in Muscat only. Future studies could survey a wider sample of Omani SME owner-managers. Second, the study’s findings cannot be generalised to large and public firms, as the sample includes owner-managers of SMEs only. Finally, there is a need to investigate other factors such as nonfinancial and behavioural factors, which were not explored in the present study, but which may influence SME owner-managers’ Islamic financial decisions.

Theoretical and empirical studies on capital structure have focused primarily on large listed firms. Only a few studies have paid attention to the capital structure of SMEs, particularly in the context of an emerging market such as Oman. This gap in the literature is mostly evident when investigating the factors that influence the funding decision towards Islamic financing in a country, such as Oman, where Islamic finance represents a new banking sector offering.

In Malaysia, both Islamic financial institutions (IFIs) and Islamic co-operatives (ICs) provide mushārakah mutanāqiṣah (diminishing partnership) (MM) financing. It was initially a preferred contract as it is deemed to be more Sharīʿah-compliant and free from the element of ribā (interest) in comparison to other Sharīʿah-compliant sale contracts. Nevertheless, MM is now considered less appealing to IFIs due to its existing challenges. This paper aims to emphasise on MM as practiced by ICs which will highlight approaches to default, pricing of rental rates, profit sharing method and early settlement which differ to the practice of MM by IFIs.

This study focuses on Koperasi Pembiayaan Syariah Angkasa (KOPSYA), an IC based in Malaysia, which the authors concurred as being an ideal organisation to study on the matter due to its strong stance in promoting Sharīʿah-compliant financing products.

The research highlights the flexibility of MM implementation in KOPSYA to provide some insights on the rationale behind MM operations in KOPSYA.

The authors are hopeful that this paper will aspire further interest by giving the readers better understanding on the implementation of MM in KOPSYA and how it will benefit the customers.

This paper aims to understand the issue of interest rate benchmarking in Islamic financial institutions (IFIs) from a macro-economic perspective and assessing the relevance of creating a Sharīʿah-compliant profit rate benchmark to solve this issue. This paper also aims at suggesting an Islamic alternative that will handle both the negative economic impact on IFIs as well as on their financial performance.

The paper is based on literature review of conventional finance and Islamic finance theories to construct a theoretical model to assess the impact of interest rate benchmarking on the ability of IFIs to achieve the objectives of the Islamic economy.

The macro-economic perspective concludes that conceiving a profit rate benchmark for the Islamic finance industry is not relevant to raising the Sharīʿah credibility of the industry. Indeed, several adjustments need to be introduced in terms of the business model.

The recommendations of this paper require the involvement of financial authorities and governments for their implementation. Indeed, the adjustments require a macro-economic review.

The paper considers a profit rate benchmark irrelevant and inefficient. Instead, it suggests the necessary adjustments in terms of business model and economic approach for IFIs to achieve their objectives.

The paper considers zakat implementation and the adjustment of IFIs as the real path to implement a fair wealth distribution in the society.

The creation of a profit rate benchmark has always been the only solution for the pricing issue in IFIs. This paper challenges this idea and tries to give a deeper understanding of the situation.

This paper aims to investigate the contribution of attitude, subjective norm and religiosity on the intention to adopt Islamic banking in an emerging economy like Uganda, which is a secular state that is in the early stages of adopting Islamic banking.

This study uses a cross-sectional and correlational research design. Usable questionnaires were received from 258 managers of their own micro businesses. A hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses.

Results indicate that attitude and religiosity are significant determinants of the intention to adopt Islamic banking, unlike subjective norm whose predictive power is subsumed in attitude. In the absence of attitude, subjective norm is a significant determinant of intention to adopt Islamic banking. Overall, attitude, subjective norm and religiosity explain 44 per cent of the variance in the intention to adopt Islamic banking in Uganda.

This study is cross-sectional, excluding the monitoring of changes in behavior over time. Further, the study used evidence from owner-managed micro businesses in Uganda. It is possible that these results are only applicable to Uganda’s micro businesses.

Islamic banking is an emerging phenomenon on the African continent, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, where most countries are secular states. As such, there are largely no empirical studies exploring the combined contributions of attitude, subjective norm and religiosity on the intention to adopt Islamic banking in an emerging economy after the national adoption of an enabling legal framework. To the best of the researchers’ knowledge, this is the first study that carries out this task.

This study aims to define the parameters of the reward-risk principle in Islamic finance as established in the literature and discuss propositions that are presented on how such a principle is to be applied to Islamic banking products.

A descriptive approach is used to explore the normative parameters and criticisms of the application of reward-risk in Islamic finance.

The study finds that the principle of reward-risk is embodied in the multi-component concept of ʿiwaḍ (counter value) which must be evident in market transactions that involve commercial exchanges. The components include risk, costs, effort, value-adding and capital, all of which apply uniquely to different contractual forms of financing.

The study uses academic literature and industry documents along with modest contact with prominent practitioners who provided general feedback on prevalent Islamic finance industry practices.

This study exposits the variety of approaches in applying the reward-risk principle and sheds light on the primary elements of the principle which will facilitate its greater consideration by the Islamic finance industry.

This study is a meaningful attempt at conveniently summing up and applying the parameters that are considered when discussing the scope of the reward-risk principle in Islamic finance.

This study aims to examine the resolutions issued by the Sharīʿah Advisory Council of Bank Negara Malaysia (SAC-BNM), which have recognized maṣlaḥah (public interest) as the basis of ruling to see the extent of its usefulness to the public and the extent of its adherence to the maṣlaḥah parameters. The study will also look into the opposing opinion to identify the basis of rejection and overall implication on Islamic finance based on opposing opinions of SAC-BNM and other bodies of collective ijtihād (juristic interpretation).

The study uses a qualitative approach by analyzing the SAC-BNM resolutions, which have been resolved based on maṣlaḥah. The study also applies the comparative approach by comparing the fatwa (Sharīʿah pronouncement) issuing bodies of Malaysia and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. Furthermore, the secondary data is obtained from sources such as uṣūl al-fiqh (theory of Islamic jurisprudence) books, papers and relevant internet sources.

The study found that SAC-BNM’s resolutions are in line with some of the major maṣlaḥah parameters mentioned in the uṣūl al-fiqh sources i.e. must not contradict with the Qurʾān and the Sunnah. While looking at the other two criteria of being in line with ijmāʿ (consensus) and having a general impact, such resolutions might not fulfill the criteria of valid maṣlaḥah considering, respectively, the stand of collective ijtihād or the impact on the group of customers and institutions.

Most available shari’ah (Islamic law) research considers the perspective of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) while analyzing the issue of maṣlaḥah. This study aims to conduct analysis based on uṣūl al-fiqh. Moreover, maṣlaḥah itself is a broad concept, which can be abused. Hence, this study discusses the parameters of maṣlaḥah to understand the validity of an important juristic tool in Sharīʿah.