This study aims to examine the extent to which Islamic accounting and business research engage with Islamic ontological foundations rather than treating Islamic principles as contextual variables. The study assesses whether the field has developed distinctive theoretical contributions grounded in Islamic ontology.
The authors conducted a systematic review of 808 articles published in the Journal of Islamic Accounting and Business Research (JIABR) from 2010 to July 2025. Using Python-based automated classification combined with manual verification, the authors analysed articles across four dimensions: thematic focus, geographic scope, methodology and research purpose. The authors specifically searched for explicit ontological and epistemological engagement.
Thematic coverage is relatively dispersed, with no single category accounting for more than 13% of publications. Quantitative methods predominate (58.7%), with limited mixed-methods approaches (2.2%). Theory testing (47.8%) and phenomenon-driven inquiry (33.4%) together account for more than 80% of the corpus, whereas theory development remains modest (8.4%). Only six papers explicitly mention ontological or epistemological terms. Read alongside the methodological and research-purpose patterns, this indicates that the field has achieved thematic breadth without corresponding ontological depth: Islamic principles function predominantly as contextual modifiers rather than foundational theoretical concepts.
The classification relies on abstracts rather than full texts, which may understate the ontological engagement embedded in the main analyses but not surfaced in the abstracts. The study is also delimited to a single journal rather than the broader field of Islamic business scholarship. The analysis reveals opportunities for developing genuinely Islamic business and management theories that move beyond technical compliance towards ontological depth.
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study provides the first systematic assessment of ontological foundations in Islamic business scholarship. It proposes concrete directions for an ontological turn that could position Islamic business research as a source of theoretical innovation rather than contextual application.
