“Google Trends” is a valuable tool that describes past changes in the interest of a given term and can predict the future. The aim of the current investigation was to examine the popularity of four full-fledged Islamic banks, namely AlBilad, Alinma, AlJazira, and AlRajhi, in the different regions of Saudi Arabia in the past 5 years (2015-2019) using “Google Trends”. Search volume data were obtained from “Google Trends” search engine. Performance indicators were obtained from banks’ annual reports. Multiple group comparisons were performed using ANOVA. Pearson's r was used for correlation analysis. The study findings showed that AlRajhi bank was the most popular bank in the examined period. The order of the popularity of the examined banks was AlRajhi > AlBilad > Alinma> AlJazira. Regional variations in the popularity of the four banks were also observed. In addition, an increase in the popularity with years was observed in the majority of the examined banks. Finally, strong correlations were found between mean search volumes and bank performance indicators such as total assets(r 2 =0.969, P=0.008), capital, number of branches(r 2 =0.988, P=0.005), number of employees(r 2 =0.982, P=0.009), and net income(r 2 =0.972, P=0.014). In conclusion, “Google Trends” is a valid tool that can be used to examine the popularity of banks in a given geographical region. The study provides feedback to studied banks to improve their performance in the very competitive environment.
Keywords: Google Trends, AlRajhi, AlJazira, AlBilad, Alinma, Islamic Banking

Charity Fund Account (CFA) is a unique account of Islamic banks (IBs) where all Shari‘ah non- compliant earnings of the banks are transferred. However, unfortunately, this has got the least attention in the academic literature so far. This case study explored the sources and uses of charity funds accounts of four Islamic banks in Pakistan. It also analyzed the disclosure level of information regarding these sources and uses of funds. The study applied content analysis technique on disclosures of charity fund composition. The study uses five-year secondary data (2014-2018) of four Islamic banks (Meezan Bank, Dubai Islamic Bank, Bank Al Barakah and Bank Islami) collected from their financial statements. The findings of the study were that there is no uniformity in the disclosure of sources and uses of charity accounts funds of the selected banks. The Meezan Bank’s disclosure level was higher than the rest of the three banks. Further, among these four banks, the Dubai Islamic banks’ late payment charges showed more decreasing trend over time. It means that Dubai Islamic banks performed better in controls and monitoring. The SBP as a regulator should make a detailed policy regarding disclosure of charity funds account to ensure uniformity and ultimately the comparability of these accounts.
Keywords: sources, uses, charity fund accounts, Islamic banks

Banking, undeniably, is a landmark feature of modernization which casts its impact all across the globe. The conventional banking is interest-based (Riba oriented); whereas, interest (Riba) is strictly prohibited in Islam. A majority of the Muslims feels restricted because of their sensitivity towards interest. Quite a number of Islamic scholars and intellectuals have tried to augment a transformation of the conventional banking into an interest free banking system which is known as Islamic Banking. However, many Islamic scholars do not agree with it and oppose it. It develops a situation of ambiguity and ambivalence about Islamic Banking for the Muslims. This paper explores the religious and rational issues related to the evolution of Islamic Banking. This research concludes that the existing Islamic Banking is not an entirely Islamic system but it is a great step towards introducing interest free banking based on Islamic principles. This analysis has been made through the jurisprudential evaluation of the Islamic principles of trade and economy, permanent Islamic laws, and moral Islamic laws regarding the financial matters. The research highlights the significance of Islamic Banking for synchronizing the Islamic religious and financial theory and practice. This is a qualitative study based on the teachings of the Holy Quran and Sunnah.
Keywords: Islamic Banking, Riba, Temporary Law, Permanent Law, Moral Law, Trade

This study aims to assess the impact of Securities Commission (SC) of Malaysia 2013 revised Shariah approved firms screening method in relation to the levels of debt and the Shariah- approved firms’ performance. Panel regressions were employed to examine the impact for firms that are consistently Shariah-approved as determined by the SC of Malaysia.The period of study is 2000 to 2014. There gression result indicatesa non-monotone association between Shariah-approved firms’ performance and debt levels. The optimum level of debt, however, is much higher than the 33% benchmark set by SC. Hence, it can be concluded that the 2013 revised Shariah- approved firms screening method which introduced the 33% debt ratio benchmark did not improve the performance of Shariah-approved firms for the period studied. Nevertheless, since the observations are only until 2014, it is possible that the observations have not capture the true impact of the change.
Keywords: Debt financing, Firm performance, Shariah-approved firms, Shariah screening method, Optimum debt level.

In current era of competition in financial markets particularly in banking sector everyone is putting its best efforts to attract more depositors. And the pattern of profit distribution is primary concern of every potential depositor for both conventional and Islamic banking, however, this pattern is not uniform. There are several factors that determine the pattern of profit Distribution among depositors. The current study also focuses on the role of different internal, bank specific, and external, macroeconomic, variables in relation with profit distribution where the variable of interest is customer’s awareness towards Islamic banking system. The current study constructs a Panel of 14 Islamic banks where 4 banks among them are full-fledged Islamic banks and remaining have their Islamic windows. The data covers the time span of 2008-17. To find empirical evidence, this study adopts Fixed effect model with White corrected standard errors structure to tackle the problems of heterogeneity in balanced panel. This study finds that customer awareness towards Islamic banks affects negatively but insignificantlyto profit distribution management in Pakistan. These findings are beneficial for Islamic banks and customers of Islamic bank because with an increase in competition there is no impact on depositors return. Therefore, Islamic banks can increase their number of branches and windows along with good quality human capital and customers can deposit their savings in Islamic banks.
Keywords: Islamic banking, customer awareness, Profit distribution management, Islamic banks, fixed effect.