Islamic Banking: Past, Present and Future

Abstract

Purpose: The Islamic banking literature has been growing rapidly in the last decade. The aim of this study is to carry out a retrospective hybrid review to reveal this literature’s influential scientific actors (countries, institutions, journals, authors and documents), identify and discuss its most important streams, and finally, present a future research agenda.

Methodology: We use a bibliometric approach, performing a review and objective analysis of 1,304 articles dealing with Islamic banking published during 1983–2021. We apply citation, keyword, and coauthorship analysis, as well as bibliographic coupling via VOSviewer software and Biblioshiny (an R package).

Findings: We identify the influential aspects in the literature and discuss four important research streams: (1) overview, growth, and legal framework of Islamic banks; (2) Islamic banks’ performance and risk management practices; (3) customer and marketing perspectives of Islamic banking; and (4) the dynamics of efficiency in Islamic banks.

Originality: This is one of the first studies to apply state-of-the-art methodology to review the literature related to Islamic banking and to highlight the dynamics of Islamic banks while presenting an extensive future research agenda.