---
title: "Islamic finance and the green transition (research idea)"
description: "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?"
url: https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/islamic-finance-and-the-green-transition
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/islamic-finance-and-the-green-transition.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "Islamic finance and the green transition (research idea): Islamic banking, Islamic finance and sukuk appear on 65 recent papers, but only 16 of them carry a green, sustainability, ESG or climate keyword."
date: "2026-10-26"
updated: "2026-10-26"
status: "seed"
tags: ["finance", "esg", "climate"]
keywords: ["Islamic finance", "sukuk", "Islamic banking"]
---

# 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?

## 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.

## Related research activity

*The keywords this note follows, in the tracked finance, accounting, economics, management, operations research and AI journals as of 2026-10-26*

| Keyword | Papers, last 30 days | Rank | Papers per month, Oct 23 – Oct 26* | Papers, last 36 months |
|---|---:|---:|---|---:|
| Islamic finance | 0 | – | 5, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 1, 1, 0, 4, 2, 1, 2, 1, 3, 3, 1, 2, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 1, 2, 1, 3, 2, 1, 1, 2, 3, 1, 1, 1, 0 | 60 |
| sukuk | 0 | – | 3, 0, 1, 1, 1, 4, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 2, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 2, 1, 0, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0 | 32 |
| Islamic banking | 0 | – | 1, 3, 4, 2, 0, 3, 3, 2, 4, 1, 2, 3, 3, 0, 4, 0, 3, 1, 3, 2, 1, 2, 0, 1, 3, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 3, 5, 3, 2, 3, 2, 0 | 73 |

## 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

```bibtex
@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}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).