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Because of chronic financial crises experienced during past several decades repeatedly and a failure to protect investors’ rights as a result, the world is looking for an alternative form of stock market for quite some time so that interests of all relevant stakeholders can be safeguarded. At the same time, from the perspectives of devout Muslims, the current form of stock market restricts a Muslim to make investments in the market because of several unsatisfying provisions from the viewpoint of the Islamic law known as Shariah. This study aims to provide the criteria under which conditions of the Islamic Shariah permit making investments in the stock market. Hand in hand with that primary discussion, it has been eluded briefly why the Islamic Shariah principles offer a better alternative against conventional practices of the stock market.

This is a descriptive study based on the literature review.

This study explores the basic Islamic principles of investment in the stock market by revisiting the norms laid down by Shariah and current global practices of Islamic stock market and indexes.

This study will work as a guideline for investors and market authorities to understand the original Shariah rulings and the benchmark rulings for investment or establishing full-fledged Islamic stock markets, indexes and mutual funds.

This paper aims to investigate the zakat disclosure of Islamic banks at the global level. It is important for depositors and shareholders of Islamic banks to know whether the bank is paying zakat on their behalf or not. Additionally, disclosing the calculation method used is also necessary to eliminate uncertainties resulting from ambiguous reporting that can mislead the stakeholders. This issue becomes more obvious when considering that depositors and shareholders may have different accounts with different Islamic banks, which makes it quite confusing to have multiple ways of zakat calculation or different approaches on who is the party that pays it. This study analyzes the current practices across 13 countries and recommends best practices.

The objective of the paper objective is achieved through analyzing the annual reports of 34 Islamic banks in 13 countries for the years 2014 and 2019. It further quantifies the zakat disclosure by constructing a zakat disclosure index. This index considers the disclosure of four major constituents covering the amount and the responsibility for payment, the calculation method, the involvement of the Shariah board and the zakat duty on investment account holders. For further robustness, this study is further supported by content analysis measures using the zakat word count in annual reports.

The results indicate a major issue in zakat disclosure. The overall average of disclosure index is low. Most of the banks disclose limited information about zakat, such as the amount and the responsibility for payment, in their annual reports. Less than 40% of the examined banks disclose information about the role of the Shariah board in zakat calculation, and a very limited number of banks (9%) are found to disclose enough details about the zakat calculation method. Furthermore, none of the examined banks mentions the zakat due for the investment accounts. Overall, zakat disclosure of most of the banks, whether following Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions or otherwise, are found to be not up to the expected best practices.

Among the limitations of this study is the sole dependence on annual reports of Islamic banks without considering other means that banks might be using to communicate zakat-related matters to stakeholders. Examples of such means include a website, social media and other direct or indirect marketing materials. Additionally, the results of this study shall not be overgeneralized regarding differences between countries because the sample does not include all Islamic banks in the selected country. Future research may use the proposed zakat disclosure index on a country-specific data sample.

The findings have significant implications as they raise a serious concern regarding the sufficiency of the Islamic banks’ disclosure about a core area of their responsibility, that is, the zakat. The index developed can be a tentative measure of zakat disclosure transparency pending further review. The result further suggests looking at the composition of members of Shariah boards to include at least one member with a sound accounting background. Zakat is a religious duty; therefore, a perceived lack of transparency on the amount, method of calculation and how the zakat is paid may affect the future injection of capital into Islamic banks.

An important contribution of this paper lies in the fact that the collected data is not provided in any available database. Rather, it is manually captured from the individual annual reports of reviewed Islamic banks. Further, this paper proposes an index to measure the zakat disclosure at bank and country levels.

This paper aims to compare and contrast alternative pension plans in the market place and their status as zakatable wealth or property. These plans differ in terms of who is responsible for providing funds for pension benefit to the retirees upon retirement and who is responsible for bearing investment risk. Whether a pension plan is subject to zakat immediately or upon receipt at retirement depends on immediate accessibility to and ownership of the funds in the account. It makes no difference whether employer and/or the employee is (are) responsible for funding the plan and who bears the investment risk.

Descriptive and analytical methods were used.

There is consensus among Muslim jurists and shariah scholars that mandatory retirement plans offered as a part of compensation and benefit package for a job are subject to zakat when money is received upon retirement and non-mandatory plans offered as replacement for or supplement to employer-sponsored plans with voluntary employee participation are subject to zakat in each year of employment.

There is no prior research work in the extant literature examining zakatability of alternative retirement plans offered in the US marketplace. This paper fills this void and provides a comprehensive survey and analysis of all available retirement plans and their treatment with respect to zakat.

This paper aims to present an alternative to current banking systems. The purpose of the paper is the optimisation of the concept of cash waqf and its management in the framework of a waqf bank and its viability.

The study is doctrinal and empirical. Several assumptions concerning the structure and operation of the bank are made, surveyed and descriptively analysed.

The concept of cash waqf could be used for the operation of a waqf bank. There was a tendency among the given group of practitioners towards a corporate international social bank, capitalised by the waqf and non-waqf assets, sought after from the public and private sectors, as well as the Muslims and non-Muslims.

Assumptions are basic. Empirical findings are based on the perspective of waqf trustees. Other stakeholders’ perspectives need further research.

The study is expected to persuade for, and assist in the establishment of a waqf bank.

This paper could contribute to the effectiveness of waqf institutions in their delivery of public good to the poor and society. These implications are not restricted to a specific country. Charities and the poor of any society may benefit from this study if the idea of total social banking is upheld.

This study is the first to address the structure and operation of a waqf bank empirically.

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.

The Sharīʿah Standard No. (35) issued by the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) aims to identify the zakāt base for institutions (including Islamic insurance companies) as well as the subsidiary and the mother company of the institution (the company). By zakāt base, the standard means the items of financial statements that should or should not be included in the calculation of the zakāt base, and the liabilities or allocations that should or should not be deducted from zakatable assets. The standard also covers payable zakāt rates, disbursement of zakāt funds on the eight categories of zakāt recipients and the rulings pertaining to disbursement. The focus then is on companies or corporations. There is no indication in the aims as to who owns the wealth of the corporation, that is, whether it is the company itself or it is the shareholders and whether it is treated as a joint wealth of the shareholders or of a single individual in the form of the company. The author will rely on this issue as one factor on the basis of which the standard is to be judged.

Quran and hadith. Works of earlier jurists.

In this study, the author has summarized the provisions of zakāt according to the traditional law, but only those that are relevant for the financial institutions and the standard issued by the AAOIFI. After that, the author mentioned the major points that have been addressed by the standard. In the last section, the author has shown that the rulings of the Islamic Fiqh Academy and the AAOIFI on zakāt are totally confusing and merely a reproduction of the rulings of traditional law. The main reason for this confusion is that the nature and entity of a corporation have not been addressed and have been treated like a partnership, thus, jumbling up the entire issue of zakāt through banks.

The main purpose in undertaking this original work is to examine the AAOIFI Sharīʿah Standards from the perspective of traditional Islamic law, that is, the law of the senior schools as laid down in their authentic manuals. If there is an extensive deviation from this law, then this must be pointed out in the hope that it will be corrected by the concerned institution and the banks that adopt these standards. Neglecting such a corrective action for long will result in damage not only to these institutions in the long run but also to the law of Islam that has been so carefully crafted over centuries. The purpose is to show how far this standard deviates from traditional Islamic law and claims to be called the authentic view on a particular subject. Nevertheless, it is not the purpose of this work to explain and elaborate on the meaning and utility of these standards.

There is much debate in the literature about how the performance of Islamic banks (IBs) should be measured. Basically, IBs’ business models are different from that of conventional banks; thus, the performance of IBs should be measured by using a Sharīʿah-based approach. This paper considers zakat (Islamic tax) as an alternative indicator to measure the performance of IBs. This paper aims to examine whether zakat ratios can be used as Islamic performance (ISPER) indicators for IBs besides the conventional performance (COPER) indicators.

The investigation covered a sample of 214 yearly observations of 37 IBs located in Indonesia, Malaysia, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for the period 2007–2015. This study used a single-factor congeneric model and confirmatory factor analysis, performed using the AMOS 23.0 software.

The findings assert that the discriminant validity of multi-bank performance, as measured by ISPER [zakat on assets (ZOA) and zakat on equity (ZOE)] and COPER indicators (return on assets, return on equity and operational efficiency in terms of assets), is very high. Hence, ISPER and COPER measurements are valid, either together to measure the multi-performance of IBs from both the Islamic and conventional perspectives, or independently as each measurement is valid to measure the Islamic and conventional performance if it is used separately.

This paper does not investigate whether the findings are constant across time. This represents one of the limitations of this study.

It is strongly recommended that IBs calculate and disclose zakat ratios, particularly ZOA and ZOE, in their annual reports. Researchers and academicians should use these ratios for measuring the ISPER of IBs, either along with COPER or separately.

Empirical evidence is provided in this paper on the development and validity of zakat ratios as ISPER indicators in the Islamic banking industry. Zakat ratios are suitable indicators that can measure IBs’ performance and achieve the goals of IBs as well as those of Islamic economics. Technically, zakat has a dynamic ability to reflect the profitability of IBs. The more the IBs generate profit, the more they pay zakat. Furthermore, the greater the total assets of IBs, the higher the amount of zakat that they should pay. Thus, zakat ratios can be used as profitability measurements as in the case of tax ratios.

Zakat, one of the fundamental pillars of Islam, holds the potential to significantly contribute to fiscal consolidation, particularly in developing nations. However, the national-level potential of Zakat often remains unexplored. This study aims to explore the potential of national-level Zakat and the opportunity to integrate it into the fiscal framework.

This study estimates Zakat’s potential on national financial and economic components. The components include bank deposits, shares and securities, pensions (provident fund), industrial production and trade services, mining resources, Ushr on agro-crops and forestry, Ushr on livestock, Ushr on fishery, gross domestic product (GDP), national budget and national revenue. The study gathers data, ranging from FY2000 to FY2018, on national economic sectors from reliable secondary sources. The net value (NV) of each indicator is calculated as NV = TV − LA, where NV is the wage-adjusted net value after deducting the living adjustment (LA) value from the sectoral total. The proposed LA value, approximately 20%, is suggested to be deducted from the total sectoral value of each sector (excluding specific industries with preadjusted wages), equating to the Nisab value.

It is estimated that the aggregate potential of Zakat in Bangladesh was US$9,749m in FY2018, compared to US$809m in FY2000, revealing the value is 3.77% of GDP and 21% of the national fiscal budget. In FY2018, the service sector was the largest contributor (30%), followed by bank deposits (23%). Pension funds made minimal contributions, whereas shares and bonds, as well as the manufacturing sector, each made a 10% contribution to the estimated Zakat potential. Zakat on agriculture output accounted for 15% of the total. The aggregate potential Zakat in FY2018 was 12% higher than that in FY2000.

The paper highlights a novel contribution through its nuanced analysis of sector-specific Zakat on macrolevel data and its implications within the fiscal framework. The results suggest that Zakat has substantial potential to impact fiscal dynamics, providing valuable insights for policymakers and stakeholders to recognize the national-level Zakat for development plans such as the five-year plan. The study suggests piloting a central and independent national body to study the feasibility of national-level Zakat collection and its utilization in the fiscal budget. It will help the government reduce the burden of external debt and deficit budget and, instead, will promote revenue collection in collaboration with the National Board of Revenue.

In this paper we analyze investment behavior under profit‐and‐ loss sharing contracts in an environment of asymmetric information. Under certain restrictive assumptions, PLS contracts are characterized with over investment, where the equilibrium level of investment exceeds the first best (full information) level. A zakat tax on profit is shown to restore efficiency.

This chapter explores the impact of the pandemic on Islamic commercial finance and Islamic social finance in a comprehensive manner. The chapter reveals that COVID-19 has provided more opportunities to Islamic social finance than Islamic commercial finance. The beauty of Islamic finance in this regard is reflected as the perception that Islamic finance does not achieve its objective as being a social finance is proved to be false as Islamic finance not only promotes profit maximization, but it has also the potential to achieve social objectives. Islamic commercial finance developments could be slower, but it is anticipated that Islamic social modes of financing will be used widely even by multilateral agencies to assist the communities who need help in this pandemic. The most important lesson one could learn from this pandemic in relation to Islamic finance is that Islamic finance is truly different from conventional finance and as such, it needs a unique legal, regulatory and governance framework to display the true potential of it.