Will Artificial Intelligence Rejuvenate Islamic Finance? A Version of World Academia
Authors: ABBAS Kausar , HAFEEZ Muhammad 
Published: October 2021

Modern Artificial Intelligence (AI) uprising has transformed the world of finance and financial institutions have taken it as the unprecedented challenge to gain a competitive advantage. The main objective of this paper is to evaluate the nexus of Artificial Intelligence and Islamic finance based on Islamic finance experts’ opinions and assessments across the globe. Therefore, purposive sampling technique has been applied to collect the opinions. Narrative analysis was used to analyze the data. Henceforth, professors and associate professors were contacted through social networks such as WhatsApp, Facebook and emails messages as the author knows these experts individually. The respondents were chosen from Malaysia, UK, Qatar, Germany, Turkey, Indonesia, Brunei, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, USA, and Pakistan. Data were collected in the duration of one month. Majority of the respondents agreed that Artificial Intelligence can play an important role in almost every area. It can replicate human thinking in technical areas to a great extent. AI/Machine Learning &amp; also Data Science &amp; Data Analytics, can provide solutions involving automation and data...e.g banking services automation, robo-advisors, auto-trading, data services (like Reuters &amp; Bloomberg), commodity trading, wealth management, rating agency services, and software (IOS/Android) development. Blockchain is separate (eg on crypto-currencies, but processing speed is slow) but anyway short term success for IF can be with Machine learning &amp; Data Analytics rather than blockchain, but blockchain technology is improving and opening up new areas of application. Furthermore, in some countries, such as Pakistan, Islamic finance is personality driven. So Artificial Intelligence cannot replace actual persons in the short-run to create a credible trust. In the long-run gradually, it may be possible that robo Shariah advisory may be popular. Technology is important indeed. Maybe artificial ıntelligence will help Islamic finance to make people more financialized which is not good. However, we can look into the issue of how can we use artificial intelligence to support real sector. The Islamic banks are scaring to use partnership based financial instruments as Mudarabah and Musharakah when allocating their funds to customers. The reason is control function. Can artificial ıntelligence help to have the control of those deals? If so it is very good.
Nonetheless, this study suggests that it will be great if we can archive such more systems at advance levels, but are we aware of the amount of programming to do that? Having overcome the Main framework, then Islamic Finance mitigation and Sariah framework can be adopted with less efforts. This study explores the needs and potentials of artificial ıntelligence for different avenues as it will improve the performance of Islamic Finance. However, we should specify and narrow it as Islamic finance is very broad. This study, therefore, has opened many future research opportunities in the area of artificial ıntelligence in Islamic Banking and Finance. It discovers many new avenues that contribute to the development of artificial ıntelligence in Islamic Banking. Besides, the present study appears to be the first attempt to discuss the opinions and assessments of the experts of Islamic finance from across the globe. This study also helps to add the value to the existing literature in Islamic finance and financial technology.