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SeedPublished 2026-10-26

Islamic finance and the green transition

Islamic banking, Islamic finance and sukuk appear on 65 recent papers, but only 16 of them carry a green, sustainability, ESG or climate keyword. Green sukuk issuance has grown in the Gulf and Southeast Asia. Is Sharia-compliant finance a natural fit for sustainable investment, or just another label?

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What prompted this#

Since October 2025, 65 papers carry an Islamic-finance, sukuk or Sharia keyword (43 in finance journals, 10 in management): "Islamic banking" on 25, "Islamic finance" on 19, "sukuk" on 12, "sharia compliance" on 10. Only 16 also carry a green, sustainability, ESG or climate keyword (sustainable finance 4, green bonds 3), while green bonds as a whole are one of the larger topics in the finance journals.

Questions#

  • Do green sukuk price differently from conventional green bonds of the same issuer, and is there a "double label" premium?
  • Are the projects financed by green sukuk different from those of conventional green bonds, or are the frameworks copied?
  • Do Sharia screens (which exclude some sectors and high leverage) already tilt Islamic funds toward lower-carbon portfolios?

Data that could help#

Sukuk and green bond issuance with prices (Bloomberg, Refinitiv), issuer frameworks and allocation reports, and Islamic fund holdings with carbon data.

Next step#

Match green sukuk to conventional green bonds from the same sovereign or corporate issuers and compare yields at issue and in the secondary market.

The keywords this note follows, in the tracked finance, accounting, economics, management, operations research and AI journals as of 2026-10-26
KeywordPapers, last 30 daysRankPapers per month, Oct 23 – Oct 26*Papers, last 36 months
Islamic finance0–60
sukuk0–32
Islamic banking0–73

Markdown version of this note: /ideas/islamic-finance-and-the-green-transition.md

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Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Islamic finance and the green transition. Journal Research Rankings. Retrieved October 26, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/islamic-finance-and-the-green-transition

@misc{scholar4ai-ideas-islamic-finance-and-the-green-transition,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Islamic finance and the green transition},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/islamic-finance-and-the-green-transition}},
  urldate = {2026-10-26},
  note = {Journal Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}

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