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Islamic banks provide an alternative financial system based on Sharia’h (Islamic law). However, critics argue that operation at Islamic banks is violating Sharia’h particularly in terms of provision of interest free services, risk sharing and legal contract. The purpose of this paper is to empirically evaluate the Sharia’h practice at Islamic banks in Pakistan by considering some basic principles of Sharia’h.

Primary data are collected from 63 branches of Islamic banks in Pakistan. Questionnaire is used as an instrument. The study uses structural equation modeling that includes confirmatory factor analysis and regression analysis. Data are codified and analyzed using SPSS and Amos.

This study finds that Islamic banks are providing interest free services, ensuring that transactions and contracts offered by Islamic banks are legal and offering conflict-free environment to customers. In contrast, estimated results expose that Islamic banks are not sharing risk and Sharia’h supervisory board is not performing its role perfectly. Similarly, it is found that organization and distribution of zakat and qard-ul-hassan are weak at Islamic banks.

Data are collected from Islamabad federal capital of Pakistan that hold just 5 per cent share of Islamic banking industry. This small share may not provide true picture of Islamic banking sector.

To ensure risk sharing, Islamic banking industry must consider the development of new modes of financing and innovation of more products based on Sharia’h. State Bank of Pakistan should ensure separate regulatory framework that enable Islamic banks to provide qard-ul-hassan, organize and allocate zakat.

This paper discusses the perception of bankers, who are actually the executors, about Shariah’s practices at Islamic banks in Pakistan. There are not many discussions on this topic that could be found, and hence this could be considered as a significant contribution by this paper to the existing literature of Islamic finance.

Increasing popularity of Islamic banks in the wake of recent global financial crisis of 2008 has generated debate among researcher about practicality of Islamic banks. Critics argue that Islamic banks are not working according true spirits of Sharia’h. This paper aims to empirically address the question that how Islamic is Islamic banking in the case of Pakistan.

The target population in this paper is staff at the Islamic banks who are employees and managers. Data are also collected from customers to analyze their views. Sample comprises 63 branches of five full-fledge Islamic banks and five Islamic branches of conventional banks in Islamabad. For analysis purpose, the study uses exploratory factor analysis.

Findings indicate that Islamic banks are following Sharia’h excluding the provision of profit loss sharing contracts and provision of qard-ul-hassan. Moreover, it is found that customers are less agreed and more neutral about Sharia’h-based operations at Islamic banks.

Findings will help regulators to introduce wide range of Islamic financial contracts that involve profit loss sharing and consider the expansion of emerging industry. Moreover, findings suggest to consider promotional techniques to create awareness of Islamic banking among the customers.

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.

This study aims to find out the problems of family Takaful (Islamic Life Insurance) operations in Bangladesh and proposes strategies to overcome the problems.

Qualitative data were collected through interviews with 32 respondents from two family Takaful operators in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

The study finds a number of problems of family Takaful which relate to the government, Takaful company and the Shariah board. Lack of governing guidelines for Takaful companies in Bangladesh is causing numerous operational problems of family Takaful. To overcome these obstacles, the government should propose separate Act for Takaful. This requires support from the stakeholders along with Islamic scholars in the country.

It is anticipated that the findings and suggestions of the study will assist the policymakers in improving the situation of family Takaful companies particularly in Bangladesh.

If the proposed suggestions are implemented in Takaful companies, the problems facing Takaful will likely be solved and more people will take part in Takaful. This would contribute to developing the country economically, raise Islamic values and foster peace and harmony in the society.

Mainly, this study is based on the primary research that has been conducted in family Takaful companies in Bangladesh.

This study aims to investigate the differences in the credit profiles of Islamic and conventional banks in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region and attempts to identify the factors responsible for those differences.

Financial data sourced from the Bankscope database for a sample of 25 Islamic and 56 conventional banks headquartered in the GCC region between 1987 and 2014 are used. The credit risk of Islamic versus conventional banks is compared using a variety of univariate (mean difference test and correlation analysis) and multivariate tests (pooled ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions with robust standard errors and year fixed effects, regressions with interaction variables and logistic regressions).

Pooled OLS regressions find that Islamic banks have lower credit risk than conventional banks. Robustness checks using logistic functions and interaction variables confirm this result. Using multiple econometric specifications, we also find that higher capitalization, greater liquidity and cost inefficiency contribute to the lower risk profile of Islamic banks.

The study is unable to disaggregate data for banks offering both Islamic and conventional banking services and hence does not include conventional banks with Islamic windows. In addition, there are differences across countries even within the GCC region as to what is considered Sharia’h-compliant and what is not.

The results are of potential interest to not only researchers, but also market participants, regulators and legislators. The methods used in this study could be extended to other two-tiered banking systems and, in the case of Islamic and conventional banking, to other markets.

The authors use a unique sample of banks headquartered in the GCC countries, whose banking markets are similar, if not homogeneous, thus excluding operations of multinational banks. By focusing on the Gulf region, differences in the credit profiles of Islamic and conventional banks can be examined without the confounding effects of unobserved factors like culture, accounting regime or regulatory environment.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between corporate governance and financial stability of the Islamic banking institutions in Malaysia. Indeed, we do not know much about the relationship between the corporate governance variables and the financial stability of the Islamic banks (IBs) in Malaysia.

In this case, the level of bank stability is individually measured using the Z-score indicator. The corporate governance dimension in this study includes the Shari’ah board size (SBS) in addition to the size of board members and the proportion of independent directors in the board. Using a yearly bank-level data of 16 IBs in Malaysia from 2005 to 2015, this paper utilizes the fixed effect, the GLS random-effect models and the OLS methods to provide empirical evidences. Moreover, this work aims to focus on the country-level data of Malaysia’s banking sector and introduced the corporate governance variables in this model.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical analysis of country-level data in the Malaysia’s banking industry with this research approach. The study found that the percentage of independent members in the board of directors has a significant positive impact on the financial stability of the IBs. However, the SBS and the size of board are found to have no influence toward financial stability.

With this paper, the authors hope to clarify the relationship between corporate governance and financial stability of the Islamic banking, and provide additional insights to the emerging literature of Islamic banking.

This paper aims to empirically analyze the efficiency of full-fledged Islamic banks, Islamic branches of conventional banks and conventional banks in Pakistan.

The paper uses data envelopment analysis to measure and compare the efficiency of banks. Three measures of efficiencies such as total technical efficiency, pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency are computed to achieve the objective of the paper.

Overall, full-fledged Islamic banks are less efficient in terms of total technical efficiency and pure technical efficiency than conventional banks. However, Islamic branches of conventional banks are highly scale-efficient than their counterparts.

The findings need to be supported by considering production function and risk exposure factors.

This paper evaluates and compares the efficiency of Islamic and conventional banks by utilizing the largest available data set during 2007-2014.

This paper discussed the evolution of Islamic banks and their financial reporting practices. The paper reflected on religious justifications for establishing banks. In addition, a comparison between Islamic and commercial banks was provided.

The aim of this study is to examine arguments about the economic and ethical worth of microfinance.

This study draws on the available literature to provide a balanced discussion of different views about the economic and ethical desirability of microfinancing. The discussion is reinforced by the use of secondary data (statistics) on the attributes of microfinancing and by reference to a case study in rural Pakistan.

Microfinancing is less virtuous than commonly portrayed. Its economic inefficiency consequences are identified, and it is found only likely to make a small contribution to economic growth. The economic efficiency criterion for moral worth (promoted by Becker and Posner) is found to be wanting. From an ethical point of view, microfinance needs to be supplemented by charity to assist the poor. The supply of Islamic microfinance has grown rapidly, but it remains absolutely quite small. It still has some way to go to overcome the ethical and economic shortcomings associated with the supply of microfinance. Supplying microfinance to vulnerable female borrowers can put them under considerable psychological stress. Possible beneficial effects of microfinance are also identified.

This study is unique because it systematically draws on recent literature and data to provide a novel and balanced review of the economic and ethical worth of microfinance.

Emerging economies are increasingly benefiting from Islamic finance principles. The distinctive features of this unconventional form of finance are starting to be considered even in developed economies. Islamic finance operates under prohibitions on interest, gambling, speculation and complex derivatives according to the dogma in the Quran, Sunnah, Ijma and Qiyas. International financial reporting standards (IFRS) allow companies to attract global capital due to overcoming international borders. However, Islamic finance cannot apply all accounting standards. Therefore, this study aims to explore the implementation of international accounting standards in the Islamic finance context to present applications and future research fields.

Using a bibliometric and coding analysis, the study analyses 226 peer-reviewed journal papers extracted from the Scopus database. Using the bibliometrix package, the authors explored the literature’s intellectual, conceptual and social structures, categorising the findings into thematic clusters relevant to traditional and Islamic finance paradigms.

The results reveal new and interesting elements using the lens of the conceptual, intellectual and social structure. Additionally, the authors find out three main thematic clusters: (1) IFRS and Islamic finance: general principles; (2) IFRS and Zakat; (3) IFRS and Murabaha compatibility; (4) IFRS and Takaful; and (5) IFRS and auditing organisation for Islamic financial institution: governance strategies.

The contribution is original as the authors discover institutional theory perspectives and a diatribe between positivist and ontological approaches.