Islamic Environmental Ethics and Green Banking Adoption in Bangladesh: A Maqasid al-Shariah Perspective

Authors

  • Md Ruknuzzaman Janata Bank Limited
  • Md Kamruzzaman Cantonment College Jashore https://orcid.org/0009-0009-5579-6601
  • Md Arif Ullah Jashore University of Science and Technology
  • Sadmeem Zaman Akhi University of Dhaka
  • Abdullah Mamun Jashore University of Science and Technology

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.31098/ijmesh.v10i1.4720

Keywords:

Islamic Environmental Ethics, Environmental Awareness, Green Banking, Ecological Stewardship, Islamic Banks, Maqasid Al-Shariah

Abstract

This research investigates the interplay of Islamic environmental ethics, environmental awareness, and the practice of green banking services in Bangladesh from a moral perspective of Maqasid al-Shariah. While green banking regulation has been growing in Bangladesh, prior institutional research suggests that practice is often a mix of substantive green finance and superficial digitization, oriented more toward secular Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)-style compliance than toward Shariah-specific financial considerations (Islam et al., 2021a; Hatta et al., 2023); no ESG construct is measured directly in this study, which instead examines this tension from the customer side. With a deductive and quantitative approach, primary data were gathered from 100 purposively selected respondents who are customers of a single fully-fledged Islamic bank in Bangladesh by using a structured survey and analyzed with SPSS. The internalization of Islamic environmental ethics from Hifz al-Biah (environmental protection) to Hifz al-Nasl (intergenerational equity) had a significant positive impact on customers' environmental awareness (beta = 0.456, p less than 0.001), which in turn was the strongest predictor of green banking adoption (beta = 0.486, p less than 0.001). This relationship was not moderated significantly by personal religiosity, indicating that the association of ethics and awareness is largely independent of personal religiosity. The results reveal a recurring paradox: a strong ethical demand for authentic sustainability on the part of the customer and a predominantly procedural approach on the part of the institutions. The study concludes that while Islamic financial institutions currently have a green banking approach with a compliance orientation, it is necessary for them to integrate environmental protection into their fiduciary trust (amanah).

References

Given in the manuscript.

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Published

2026-10-19

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How to Cite

Ruknuzzaman, M., Kamruzzaman, M., Arif Ullah, M., Akhi, S. Z., & Mamun, A. (2026). Islamic Environmental Ethics and Green Banking Adoption in Bangladesh: A Maqasid al-Shariah Perspective. International Journal of Management, Entrepreneurship, Social Science and Humanities, 10(1), 415–430. https://doi.org/10.31098/ijmesh.v10i1.4720

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Section

Research Articles