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Islamic banking has undergone significant adaption since its inception. This study aims to investigate why and how Islamic banks adapt their services, using participatory financing as evidence.

A qualitative study is designed, using working capital financing and commodity operations financing in Pakistan as analytical units. The data for each analytical unit is analyzed using a qualitative content analysis, while the findings are synthesized using a cross-case synthesis method.

Findings suggest that participatory financing has undergone extensive adaptation in the Islamic banking industry of Pakistan, in the wake of resolving constraints to participatory financing and increasing its viability. Consequently, participatory finance has emerged as an attractive and viable option in Pakistan. These findings suggest that unlike in the past, where Islamic banks used to buffer themselves from the environment and ignore the market demands, they have learned to respond effectively to the market demands and the challenges posed by the environment.

Findings suggest that the adaptation strategy is more effective than the migration strategy, because it enables the financial service systems to reduce the underlying risks by avoiding emergent threats and eradicating the inherent weaknesses.

The extant literature provides a generalized view on the adaptation process that Islamic banks undergo to comply with their environment. However, it is limited in terms of conceptualizing the adaptations and innovations in their products and the underlying structural variations. The present study fills this gap.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the adoption of Islamic finance products (murabaha, musharakah, mudarabah, salam, ijara, istisna and Qard Hassan) by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Cameroon, a non-Islamic Sub-Saharan African country.

It used primary data collected from a cross-section of 1,358 SMEs in eight regions of Cameroon using self-administered structured questionnaires. To facilitate the analyses and interpretation, these products are grouped into four groups based on certain characteristics. A multivariate probit model is estimated to take into account the interaction between these different Islamic finance products.

This study revealed that the desire to comply with Sharia law, awareness, attitude and intention were critical determinants of the decision to adopt Islamic finance products by Cameroonian SMEs. The least influential factors were perceived behavioral control, subjective norms, enterprise characteristics (size, age and location) and socio-demographic characteristics of the entrepreneur (gender, age and marital status). The extension of the multivariate approach permitted us to compute for predicted probabilities which revealed that there exists a synergy effect between the different Islamic finance products. That is, Cameroonian SMEs combine different Islamic finance products at the same time based on their needs. This is especially the case between the partnership-based products (musharakah and mudarabah) and manufacture/rent products (istisna and ijara).

Policymakers are encouraged to develop stakeholder-oriented strategies to promote effective consumer education in Islamic finance products which will boost awareness. Also, Islamic finance institutions should endeavor to develop innovative financial products that are Sharia-compliant and economically beneficial to the individual and business needs of SMEs. Moreover, policymakers and management of Islamic finance institutions should ensure the putting in place of effective governance structures to guide Islamic finance operations. Finally, policymakers should endeavor to take into account the possible synergy between the different Islamic finance products in their quest to develop this activity.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that analyses the adoption of different Islamic finance products while taking into account the possible synergy that exists between these products.

This study aims to merge the world’s proven ways of housing finance, including musharakah mutanaqisah, housing cooperatives and real estate crowdfunding, to present an alternative housing unaffordability solution based on the Islamic finance principle. It is intended to reduce the burden of funding for both sides (consumers and developers) and create win–win chances for all stakeholders, including intermediaries. By moving away from debt financing and merging the features of crowdfunding and cooperative, it is hopeful that the burden of home ownership will no longer be the case.

This paper presents the opinions of potential Chinese homebuyers (minority Muslims and most non-Muslims) and a few industry experts toward the proposed model via a mixed research method.

According to the findings, the majority of respondents agreed with the proposed paradigm. Just concerned that China’s lack of community culture and trust could pose a major threat to implementation. However, this paper argues that Chinese local governments may perform pilot testing in places where Islamic culture is prevalent. Their unique community culture and fundamental understanding of Shariah law may affect the viability of the proposed model.

The proposed model would increase the applicability of Islamic finance as a way of protecting the social order of communities in the spirit of upholding justice and fairness. A new type of housing loan based on musharakah mutanaqisah may squeeze out the real estate bubble and provide stakeholders with a multidimensional investment channel. In particular, the study identifies the impact of Chinese Islamic financing on government and cultural needs. It presents possible challenges for implementing the proposed model in reality and helps bridge the gap between theory and practice.

Despite being a Muslim-dominated country, Bangladesh has widely embraced traditional microfinance since its inception in the mid-1970s. However, Islamic microfinance, which has a lot to offer to the poor, is still in its infancy and has yet to gain momentum in the country. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to analyze the importance of Islamic microfinance and propose alternative Shariah-compliant microfinance models in Bangladesh.

This study is based on the desk research method, which relies on existing literature to collect secondary data on key concerns of traditional microfinance programs. In addition, institutional-level secondary data were also collected from the Microcredit Regulatory Authority (MRA) of Bangladesh. Guided by the Maqasid-al-Shariah, this study then proposes several Islamic microfinance models to overcome selected challenges faced by the microfinance industry in Bangladesh.

This study suggested three composite Shariah-compliant microfinance models, which are likely to help the underprivileged and thus ensure the achievement of the sustainable development goals in Bangladesh. The first model explained how the operational strategy of incumbent microfinance institutions (MFIs) could be restructured, while the second proposed the organizational strategies for establishing a new MFI. The third model used the notion of Sadaqah (charity) to address the multiple borrowing issues of the industry. Meanwhile, the successful transformation of the conventional microfinance industry to an Islamic one is dependent on the effective collaboration between the regulatory authorities, practitioners and MFIs.

Albeit the paucity of literature on the topic, the findings of this study will guide policymakers/practitioners in designing relevant microfinance models to help transform conventional microfinance into Islamic microfinance in Bangladesh.

This study reports the results of the empirical investigation of the Shari'ah legal framework which serves as a basis of the crowd humanitarian fund and poverty reduction among members of Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) for improving living conditions of less privileged people in the society.

Quantitative design was employed in this study and the population comprised middle and high-skilled workers among members of the OIC.

The results demonstrated that the majority of middle- and high-skilled workers were from the middle east and others were from Saudi Arabia, Asia and Africa respectively.

Most studies on crowd humanitarian funds were theoretical in nature, this study has empirically investigated.

By making crowd humanitarian funds to be grounded within the framework of Shari'ah, it will enable majority of people in predominant Muslim countries to partake in mutual or crowd funding in order to help the less-privileged individuals among OIC members in the society.

It is an important contribution for financial inclusion and economic growth for improving social and living conditions of the less privileged people in the society.

Most studies on crowd humanitarian funds were theoretical in nature; this study has empirically provided a substantial direction for activating the mindset of the empirical investigation of different financial concepts.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-12-2022-0773.

This study aims to develop and test a research model that explores the empirical relationship between consumer religiosity, brand love and consumer forgiveness. Its objective was to enhance our understanding of the mechanisms that can influence consumers to extend forgiveness to brands in the context of Islamic banking in Tanzania.

The study used a quantitative cross-sectional survey design to gather data from 399 respondents in the Dodoma and Dar-es-salaam regions of Tanzania. A structured questionnaire was used to collect the data, which were subsequently analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) with AMOS 21.

The study’s findings revealed that consumer forgiveness is influenced by the level of brand love at an individual level. Additionally, the findings indicate that in the context of Islamic banking, brand love is an emotional behavior that is influenced by the strength of religious beliefs, that is, consumer religiosity. Consequently, the findings highlighted the mediating role of brand love in the proposed relationship between consumer religiosity and consumer forgiveness.

The fact that Islamic banking is guided by Islamic laws (Sharia) and Islamic values means that competitiveness in this sector can be established by serving consumers who are well-versed in Islamic teachings and doctrines. Furthermore, customers who possess a strong understanding of Islamic teachings and doctrines can be an asset to Islamic banks, as they are less likely to switch banks due to service delivery issues.

This empirical study is one of the few attempts to explore the relationship between consumer religiosity, consumer forgiveness and brand love. It expands our understanding of consumer forgiveness by examining the influence of deontological norms (applying norms to assess Islamic banking practices) and teleological evaluation (evaluating Islamic banking practices based on the overall balance of right and wrong expected to occur).

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 main issue is whether customers prefer convenience over Shariah compliance or the opposite when they decide their Islamic banking needs. The purpose of this paper is to explore why customers adopt Islamic banking products and services: Shariah compliance or convenience?

Using convenience sampling, 310 respondents’ data were collected through online survey. For testing the fit and hypotheses of the proposed model, AMOS 25 software and Smart-PLS 4.0 software have been used.

Attitude, Islamic value and convenience have significant determinants of Islamic banking products and services. Shariah compliance has no direct or indirect influence on neither intention nor actual behaviour to adopt Islamic banking services. Furthermore, gender has no such differential effect on the adoption.

Managers and marketers of Islamic banks may benefit from the findings of this study, which demonstrate fresh insights regarding the factors which help in strategy formulations to promote Islamic banking services.

The growth of Islamic banks, branches and windows is remarkable in both Muslim-majority and Muslim-minority countries in the world. This paper postulates the behavioural finance studies in Islamic banking and finance research stream by extending the theory of planned behaviour of Ajzen (1985) as all the three new constructs (Islamic value, convenienc and Shariah compliance) are statistically fit for further studies. However, only Islamic value and convenience are the two significant factors which drive customers to take decision in the proposed model. This study gives insights to the bankers and authority about the consumer behaviour.

This study aims to investigate the comparative importance of factors influencing the customer shift behavior from conventional to Islamic banking for consumer finance in Pakistan.

First, a comprehensive analysis of the existing literature was conducted to identify a broad range of factors related to customer shift behavior. Through an expert sampling, 14 essential factors were chosen for further investigation. Second, a questionnaire was developed using the analytical hierarchy process (AHP). This questionnaire was then distributed among customers who had previously been using conventional banking services but had made a shift toward Islamic banking. The purpose of this questionnaire was to gather data and insights regarding their motivations and decision-making process behind the shift, and a sample 215 customers are taken in the study.

The results of AHP depicts that the religiosity is a most important factor influencing customers to shift from conventional to Islamic banking, and the second most important factor is pricing. The other subsequent important factors are reputation of the bank, marketing and promotion, service quality, behavior of banks staff, Shariah compliance, management, convenience, fastness and charges/fees. Whereas documentation, ambiance and recommendation are found least important factors to patronize Islamic banking.

The study recommends Islamic banks to create awareness, concentrating on religious factor to have a greater impact on growth of Islamic banking and shrinking of conventional banking. Further, it suggests Islamic banks to apply Shariah-recommended approach of doing business, to help community in best possible way and to launch differentiated marketing techniques to attract customers. It also proposes regulatory authorities to provide facilitation to Islamic banking business by providing level playing field similar to conventional banking, tax equality and conversion of public financing from conventional banking to Islamic banking.

The originality of this study lies in its comprehensive analysis of factors influencing consumer shift behavior from conventional to Islamic banking in the context of consumer finance in Pakistan. By using the AHP, the study provides a structured approach to understanding the relative importance of these factors. This is the uniqueness of the paper that it applies the AHP for the analysis. Furthermore, the study offers practical implications for Islamic banks and regulatory authorities to effectively address and capitalize on this consumer shift trend.