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This study aims to explore the presumed relationship between religion and purchase behavior of consumers in the context of Bangladesh.

This research is divided into two main parts. In the first one, the authors reviewed some of the most important studies relative to religion and marketing and those specifically relative to Islamic marketing. In the second part, this research shows the findings of a structured questionnaire administered to a sample of Muslim consumers currently residing in the capital city of Bangladesh – Dhaka. The questionnaire also sought to find out the respondents’ attitude towards the modern marketing tactics, in terms of the physical and visual appearance of local products, their perception of religious principles in the purchase decision and their attitude towards imported products of non-Muslim countries.

Results of this study highlight that religion often represents an essential reference point in influencing the perception and purchase behavior of consumers in the context of Bangladesh. This implies that marketing strategies based on Islamic ethics is going to be quite instrumental in order to reach out to the consumers in Muslim countries. As such, there is largely a strong positive relationship between religion and the purchase behavior of Muslim consumers.

The lack of research on Islamic marketing limits the intensity of arguments in this study. For this reason, the literature review is not completely exhaustive. A small sample size has also been used due to time and resource constraints. Future research can be done on a bigger sample size of Bangladesh or other Islamic countries across the world. Other research avenues may include the study of Islamic marketing mix and exploring the factors that can influence non-Muslim consumers to select products and services based on Islamic ethics.

It is very important for businesses to introduce healthy practices in countries like Bangladesh and this can be rightly achieved through the use of Islamic marketing. Furthermore, the use of Islamic ethics in marketing strategies can eventually influence the religious perception of consumers and make them loyal towards any brands, products, and services in the context of Bangladesh.

The chapter draws attention to Bangladesh as one of the potential markets where the concept of Islamic market mechanism can be established. It also highlights the challenges that global marketers can face with Islamic marketing in Muslim countries like Bangladesh. Besides, it is the only study to date that focuses upon the relationship of religion, marketing, and consumer behavior for consumer products of the manufacturing industry.

Islamic finance and Halal product sectors are thriving successfully. This chapter is a general review of the perception of Asian consumers on Islamic finance and Halal sectors in the global Halal economy.

The first section will briefly describe the Halal concept in both Islamic finance and Halal industries, and the growth of both sectors in Asian countries. The second part highlights the review of Asian consumers’ perception towards Islamic finance products and Halal products.

The review found that the consumers’ perception towards the Islamic finance products and Halal products is distinctive. This is due to the diversity of Asian countries in terms of geography, religion, culture, ethnic, school of thoughts (madzahib), income per capita and government’s involvement.

The third part of the chapter concentrates on planning towards Halal marketing, which involves the move and future challenges in different layers of industries to gear up and strengthen the Halal economy.

India is a home to the second largest Muslim population in the world. It is equally crucial to understand the attitude of non-Muslim population towards the interest-free banking in India. The firms desirous of entering into this nascent field in India are required to know the aspirations and motivations of both Muslims and non-Muslims with respect to interest-free banking. For a large number of Muslims interest-free banking may be a matter of adhering to their faith, but for the non-Muslim customers it has to address real issues like security, risk minimisation, profitability, etc.

The present study is an attempt to understand the perceptions of Indian customers towards Islamic banking. For this purpose, a representative sample of 259 respondents is surveyed with the help of a structured questionnaire developed for this purpose.

It has been found that there are differences in the attitude of Muslims and non-Muslims towards Islamic banking. Surprisingly both groups have a similar perception about the institutions of Islamic banking. Findings of the study reveal that the attitude of Indian customers can be classified into factors like awareness, ideology, implementation, features and institutions. Therefore, such factors should be considered seriously by the Islamic banks in designing their marketing strategies.

This is a survey-based study. Hence a representative sample is mandatory. Due care has been taken to arrive at a sample size which is representative of the population; however, a large sample size shall lead to better results.

This study can help decision makers to identify the major factors that may shape the attitude of Indian customers towards Islamic banks. This should also be of some help to the management of commercial banks in devising appropriate marketing strategies for reaching and attracting young customers.

The originality of this study lies in the fact that it is a pioneering study in the Indian context which brings out the attitudinal differences between Muslims and non-Muslims with respect to Islamic banking. Further, the classification of attitude of Indian customers into factors like awareness, ideology, implementation, features and institutions adds to the originality of the study. Both these aspects of this study add value to the existing literature in the field of Islamic banking.

Halal food despite its undeniable importance for Muslims is largely absent in the tourism development and planning literature. Given the fact that today Muslims represent more than 20% of world population and the number of Muslim tourists has grown significantly over recent years, there is a dire need to investigate the halal food's potential for both the tourism industry and world trade. Furthermore, it is important to investigate at both Muslim and non-Muslim tourism sites how availability of halal food has influenced the selection of a particular destination for vacation by Muslims.

Islamic banking institutions have been in operation for nearly 50 years now and despite having been in competition with much more entrenched conventional rivals have demonstrated remarkable potential for growth and sustainability in different countries in both Muslim-dominated and Muslim-minority jurisdictions. The sustained upsurge in Islamic banks’ operations level to even a double-digit mark is not accidental but a replica of the levels of engagement of customers with Islamic banking institutions among other factors. There are various studies on Islamic banking, which covered wide range of issues, including those on Islamic banks customers’ patronage factors.

Accordingly, this chapter presents discussions on factors that influence customers’ engagement/patronage with Islamic banking. From plethora of studies conducted over long period of time and in different countries, many different factors have been identified as the determinants of customers’ engagements. The factors include but are not limited to customers’ personal attributes such as their understanding, knowledge, and perceptions of banking products, the banking institutions’ related factors such as product pricing, technology adopted by bank, environmental factors, and other myriads of determinants.