Is Shariah-Compliant Investment Universally Sustainable?

Current paper reports the outcome investigating the sustainability and efficiency of Shariah-complaint investment from the global and cross-country perspectives. Our findings, thus far, suggest that global Shariah complaint sustainable shares performed slightly better than global sustainable shares in general, during 2006-2011, and Shariah compliant shares performed substantially better than global market during the same period. The superior performances of Islamic Market indexes suggest that Shariah compliant investment is more resilient and sustainable compare to their counterparts in the long term. Further evidence from our cross country study suggests that, Shariah compliant investment perform better than the market a whole in Muslim countries, and worse than the market in predominately non Muslim countries. These findings have important implications for investors, regulators, customers, and Islamic financial institutions.