QUALITATIVE RESEARCH TECHNIQUE SECOND ASSIGNMENT

TITLE OF ASSIGNED ARTICLE:

SHARIAH ISSUES IN ISLAMIC BANKING : A QUALITATIVE SURVEY IN MALAYSIA

AUTHORS NAME:
AbdelghaniEchchabi
Department of Business Administration, International Islamic University Malaysia,
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and
HassanuddeenAbd. Aziz
Department of Finance, International Islamic University Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia

JOURNAL:
Qualitative Research in Financial Markets

NUMBER OF WORDS:
492

GROUP MEMBERS:
MUHAMMAD RAMAZAN KALHORO
BISHARAT HUSSAIN
DANISH KHAN
FARIS MAHAR

SHARIAH ISSUES IN ISLAMIC BANKING

A QUALITATIVE SURVEY IN MALAYSIA

1- Reasons for the selection of this article:

i.

This article fulfills all the criteria set by our teacher for the selection of our
article such as it is related to business discipline, it is based on the empirical
study, it is qualitative in nature, it is published within last five years and
finally phenomenology approach is used in it.

ii.

This article is published in impact factor journal (Qualitative Research in

Financial Markets) so its findings can be relied and trusted.

2- Purpose for which the article is selected: Phenomenological approach is usually

helpful when a researcher needs a description of common meaning for several
individuals of their lived experiences of a concept or phenomenon (Creswell 2013
page# 76). Moreover, the purpose of this selected article is to examine the customers
perception regarding the current shariah issues of Islamic banks in Malaysia
(Echchabi et al. 2014, p# 02), which shows a common experience that customers
share regarding the sharia issues existing in banking. Therefore a phenomenological
approach is appropriate for the purpose of this article.
3- Empirical Context of the Study: As far as an empirical context of the study is
concerned, the author tried to study the real experience of customers regarding
Islamic sharia banking issues using semi structured interviews from 10 regular
customers. (See articles p# 02) which helped them collect primary data for getting
the empirical evidence in the context of study?

4- Methodology
i.

Technique used: Techniques used by these authors were also appropriate. In

line with the objectives of the study, they used the qualitative technique with
the help of an in-depth interview in order to generate comprehensive
information to determine the perception of the customers about the shariah
compliance of their Islamic banks. Quantitative method would not have been
useful in this case.

ii.

Sampling Method: Sample selected was appropriate for the given approach.
According to Creswell 2013 (page# 81), in phenomenological approach, data

is collected from individuals who have experienced the phenomenon. In this

case the interviewees selected were the regular customers of Islamic banking
(page # 08 Paragraph # 01) and they had all experienced the Shariah issues in
their respective banks.
iii.

Analysis: Analysis section of this article seems appropriate. The authors

reviewed the 10 interviews several times to achieve the holistic understanding
of the meaning of the participants experiences about a common phenomenon
(Page# 08, Data analysis section). In addition the researchersalso highlighted
the significant statements/ sentences, which is required in phenomenological
approach, told by the participants (see results section for example p#8-11).

5- Tracing the researcher invisible or visible: Study shows that researchers had not
experienced the phenomenon and got information after collecting data through in
depth interviews. Moreover the researcher was not much involved in research just like
researchers do in ethnography. Therefore it can be said that researcher was invisible in
research as he was studying the context but not a part of the context.
6- Characteristics of phenomenological approach: The research satisfies almost all the
characteristics of phenomenological approach (Used in our selected article) of
qualitative research: the authors studied the lived phenomena of regular customers of
Islamic banking through in-depth interviews and analyzed transcribed data to describe
the sense of experience of customers.