Marketing and Branding Research

Abstract

With the fall of Soviet Union in 1991 the whole Central Asian region perceived a considerable rise in Muslim identity, a call back to Islamic legacy. Nowadays, lots of Central Asian Muslims need to be aware of what Islam has termed legal (Halal) and illegal (Haram). The process of Islamic revival occurred rapidly soon after the unification of Central Asian republics with other Muslim geographies through the membership of Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) and other similar organizations. This interaction tended to be an essential push factor to the previously existing indigenous reviving trends and sentiments. Besides many other needs, Muslim customer demand appeared as navel movement in the market generally and in banking and financial sector particularly. To satisfy this need, the governments of Muslim majority Central Asian states, namely Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan presented Halal banking and financial goods in the market. In this work, it has been attempted to recognize the causes that lead to the emergence of Islamic banking and finance industry in the region and also to investigate the effect of these causes considering the development and progress of Halal banking and financial industry.