Tawarruq application in Islamic banking: a review of the literature

Purpose – This paper aims to present the results of a comprehensive literature review with regard to the application of Tawarruq in the Islamic banking system covering the period between 2011 and before. The review aims to synthesize the previous research, capsulize the structural overview inasmuch as future research might be oriented and identify the gaps and direction for future research. Design/methodology/approach – A range of published and unpublished documents was collated and filtered based on the defined rules to identify the determinants of the writing. The documents were then be classified into few segments in which content analysis was conducted to capsulize the essence of the subject matter described in the literature. Findings – The analysis demonstrates that most of the studies discussed the fundamental theories which concerning the area of jurisprudence, while a few of them did discuss the application aspect in the banking environment. However, none of the operational process is discussed in-depth, whereas the risk of Shari’ah non-compliance might arise in the detail transaction. Research limitations/implications – The databases used in the search might not contain all the documents that could be relevant for the review. Furthermore, the defined-rule for document searching and selection excluded the out-of-scope documents that might be relevant. Originality/value – This paper identifies the gaps that become apparent in the literature in assisting researchers to ascertain the interesting areas as well as the direction for future research.