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This study aims to examine the relationship between service quality and customers’ satisfaction, and the effect of service quality on customers’ satisfaction in Tanzanian Islamic banking.

This study applied six service quality dimensions of CARTER model, i.e. compliance, assurance, reliability, tangible, empathy and responsiveness, to measure Tanzania Islamic banks’ service quality. The questionnaire was also used to measure the level of customers’ satisfaction to the Islamic banking services provided. A total of 384 questionnaires were randomly distributed to the customers of People’s Bank of Zanzibar Islamic banking division, whereby 255 questionnaires were returned and used for analysis. By using SPSS version 19, descriptive analysis, correlation analysis and regression analysis have been used to meet the research objectives.

The study findings indicate that customers are satisfied with the Islamic banking services provided by Tanzania banks. However, it has been found that customers are attracted by compliance, tangibility and reliability of the banks. The findings further indicate a significant relationship between service quality and customers’ satisfaction. Indeed, empathy, compliance and reliability were found to be the only significant predictors of customers’ satisfaction.

Further researches should be considered to involve more banks to generalize the findings. Again, the study has focused on the influence of service quality on customer satisfaction; however, there may be other issues that have direct or indirect influence on customers’ satisfaction on Tanzania Islamic banking. It is, therefore, suggested that future researchers may broaden their scope and conduct research in these areas.

The findings of the study suggest that there is large number of Muslim and non-Muslims communities who are interested in Islamic modes of finance and banking. Banks have potential to increase customers’ base by improving the quality of their services. Essentially, banks must focus on complying with Islamic principles, improving reliability and empathy, as they statistically influence customers’ satisfaction.

The study creates awareness about the nature of the quality of services provided by Islamic banks in Tanzania. Hence, the study may influence more customers to join Islamic banks for better services.

This study is important for Tanzania Islamic banks considering that the country has a large number of Muslim communities and non-Muslims who are interested in Islamic modes of finance and banking. While most of the other studies on customers’ preferences in Tanzania are based on conventional banking services, this study focuses on Islamic modes of finance and banking.

Islamic banking as a financial institution has always been proclaimed to be different from conventional banking systems. This is mainly due to the prohibition of interest and emphasis on achieving social economic responsibility in society. However, in practice, Islamic banking practices in the UK seem to be far away from its paradigm version. The main purpose of this study is to evaluate user perceptions of Islamic banking practices in the UK.

To explore the understandings and perceptions of customers about Islamic banking practices in the UK an online questionnaire survey is used as the research approach in this study. The survey was conducted through a closed‐ended structured questionnaire.

The overall findings of this study suggest that Islamic banking in the UK is not fully aligned with the paradigm version of Islamic finance. The respondents generally agree with the view that the principle of profit and loss sharing element represents the true spirit of Islamic banking practices, however, due to the complex nature of Islamic banking products, they are unsure about the full benefits of this system. There is a high expectation among the respondents about the commitment and strong welfare role of Islamic banks in society. It is therefore suggested that through research, effective marketing and generating more awareness in users about Islamic finance, it is possible to achieve more from the Islamic banking paradigm.

This study is not only relevant to Muslims, but also to the banking regulators in the UK, as many conventional banks are now offering Islamic products and services alongside their routine interest‐based transactions. Hence there is a need for the regulators to understand the real nature of such practices by both the Islamic and conventional banks and establish a uniform regulation so that users are not ill‐treated by banks in the UK.

This study aims to investigate the potential application of Istisna’ financing in Malaysia.

Using primary data from semi-structured interviews with 17 participants, including Islamic financial institutions (IFIs), regulatory body and property development companies, the findings of the study suggest that Istisna’ is perceived as a good contract that has unique features and the potential to be implemented in Malaysia; although, it has only been implemented a little by current businesses, mainly due to its perceived high risks.

The authors find there is a gap between the theory and the actual operation of IFIs in Malaysia – some salient features of an Islamic contract are actually difficult to execute in reality as there are many factors to be considered, such as default risk in Istisna’, legal issues and accounting treatment of Istisna’ contract. This study recommends the further development of Istisna’ in Malaysia due to its huge potential in the Islamic financial market there.

Istisna’ is a unique type of sale contract that is used in the manufacturing sectors where the sale of a commodity is transacted before the commodity exists. In practice, data from the Central Bank of Malaysia show that Istisna’ financing is scarce.

The study differs from previous research studies on Istisna’ – to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to provide evidence the real thoughts of IFIs with regard on Istisna’ specifically and IFIs’ operations in general. Previous studies related to Istisna’ have limited scopes, as they have mainly explored the theoretical nature of the contract, issues of permissibility from the Shariah perspective and its comparability with other IFIs product such as Salam. In this study, from respondents’ views, the authors notice actually there is a gap between theory and the real practice of Islamic finance. An Islamic finance instrument may be an ideal choice to customers but not very popular from IFIs’ sides. In this respect, the authors add to the growing literature of Istisna’ by asking the direct questions to IFIs and the authors get honest responses pertaining to default risk, legal issues and accounting treatment.

Examines the cultural and business realities of the Arab world. Presents a framework which incorporates cultural variables and their influence on business, in two similar yet distinct Arab subcultures. Discusses business strategies with cultural dimensions within the context of the framework.

Understanding the important patronage factors of Islamic credit card as a new e-commerce banking service is essential for bankers and users. Although some previous studies have focused on the factors that influence adoption of Islamic credit card, there are few empirical research studies that use a well-established adoption model that helps bankers and consumers to accept and use the Islamic credit card. This study aims to provide such a model to facilitate the adoption of Islamic credit card.

In response, a conceptual model was developed that combines the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) with perceived religiosity (a new developed construct in this study) and trust to explain usage intention of this new banking product. Accordingly, the data were collected from 327 bank customers, and the results supported the applicability of TAM to describe usage behavior of Islamic credit card. Besides, the newly developed construct (perceived religiosity) increased the TAM power regarding explaining adoption of a new e-commerce banking service.

Theoretically, the results of this study advocate that perceived religiosity increase the TAM predictive power to clarify intention to use. While, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and attitude explained low level of the variance regarding intention to use, by adding perceived religiosity to TAM, these constructs contributed to an increase in the described variance, therefore offering a better explanatory power. In addition, the proposed joint TAM, perceived religiosity and trust explained 57.1 per cent of usage behavior variance. These results are of prime importance, as, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that proves the applicability of TAM for explaining adoption and usage of the Islamic credit card.

The findings of the current study showed that perceived usefulness is an important factor effecting people’s intention to use the Islamic credit card. Consequently, managers need to first ensure that the Islamic credit card and its services are technically sound and work in an appropriate manner. The focus should be on promoting speed, efficiency and effectiveness of this new product. In financial part, there is a need to reduce the interest rate in the long run to encourage potential users to consider the usage of the Islamic credit card and its offered services.

Peace is a very precious commodity. It is being concealed by a number of other goals. All the great living religions‐revealed or non‐revealed are strongly committed to peace. This is even more true for the three Abrahamic faiths‐Judaism, Christianity and finally Islam. Unfortunately, the history of world events during last few decades attests to the fact that there exist more suspicions, distrusts, enmity, hatred and anger among the believers belonging to these three faiths than the others. The reason being the primary goals pertaining to political, socio‐cultural and economic pursued by the Christian‐dominated West are predominated by the goal of supremacy and domination and not of coexistence and cooperation. In pursuing these goals the Christian including the Jewish dominated West are pursuing the philosophy of moneytheism, liberalism, modernism and secularism. The Muslims living either in their own lands or in the West being the victims of their own despotic and autocratic rulers and their Western sympathisers are forced to take recourse to equally unjust methods branded as terrorism. Having realised the need for peaceful coexistence, this paper advocates for a thorough transformation as far as the basic goals are concerned. In order to achieve this, the existing academic, cultural and religious institutions and media need to undergo transformation based on an acceptable moral education on behaviours, norms and practices.

This study comprehensively aims to review the key influential and intellectual aspects of spillovers between Islamic and conventional financial markets.

The study uses the bibliometric and content analysis methods using the VOSviewer software to analyse 52 academic documents derived from the Web of Sciences (WoS) between 2015 and June 2022.

The results demonstrate the influential aspects of spillovers between Islamic and conventional financial markets, including the leading authors, journals, countries and institutions and the intellectual aspects of literature. These aspects are synthesised into four main streams: research between stock indexes; studies between stock indexes, oil and precious metal; works between Sukuk, bond and indexes; and empirical studies review. The authors also propose future research directions in spillovers between Islamic and conventional financial markets.

Our study is subject to several limitations. Firstly, the authors only used the WoS database. Secondly, the study only includes papers and reviews written in English from the WoS. This study assists academic scholars, practitioners and regulatory bodies in further exploring the suggested issues in future studies and improving and predicting economic and financial stability.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no extant empirical studies have been conducted in this area of research interest.

This study quantified the hedge and safe haven features of bond markets for multiple cryptocurrency indices from June 2014 to April 2021 to highlight whether bond markets offer hedging facilities to uncertainty indices of cryptocurrencies.

The authors employed the methodology of Baur and McDermott (2010) and AGDCC-GARCH model to measure the hedge and safe-haven characteristics of three bond markets (BBGT, SPGB and SKUK) for three uncertainty indexes of cryptocurrencies (UCRPR, UCRPO and ICEA).

The authors find that bond markets are neither hedge nor safe havens except for SKUK which is a safe haven investment for cryptocurrency indices and offers substantial diversification during the periods of economic fragility. In addition, the hedge effectiveness of SPGB outperforms other bonds during crisis periods and provides sufficient diversification potential for cryptocurrency indices.

The findings are important for policymakers, regulatory bodies, financial firms and investors in assessing hedge and safe haven characteristics of bond markets against cryptocurrency indices.

Employing the novel methodology of AGDCC-GARCH with three different bond markets and three uncertainty indices of cryptocurrencies, the current study adds to the existing strand of literature in terms of quantifying hedge and safe-haven attributes of bond markets for cryptocurrency uncertainty indexes.