Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) From Islamic Perspective: A Literature Discussion

Islamic banking industry has been established for almost fifty years since 1970s. Although an Islamic bank still makes up only a fraction of the banking assets of Muslims, it has been growing faster than projected. The Shariah based concept, products and services provided have been well accepted worldwide. However, there still lack of discussion on how Islamic banks adopted all the Islamic ethical principles in performing their CSR. The paper aims to discuss the CSR concept from Islamic perspective. It is a conceptual attempt to discuss on how Islamic principles can influence the Islamic banks to the implementation of CSR. The religious characteristics that acted as a foundation for the establishment of Islamic banking are expecting to have an influence on corporate social responsibility. For that reason, the paper examines and analyse the relevant literature on Islamic bank and CSR discussions. The paper finds that, Islamic principle has a strong influence of CSR practice among Islamic banks. Thus, it is expected that the Islamic banks should be more proactive in CSR practice rather than conventional bank in fulfilling its religious obligation and their exemplary as a financial intermediary. Our study offers an original contribution to Islamic banking literature by develops a link between Islamic banking and Islamic ethical principle in CSR practice.