Mapping waqf research: a thirty-year bibliometric analysis

Purpose Waqf played a powerful Islamic social finance instrument throughout Islamic history. However, the popularity of waqf declined in recent years. It is essential to understand the past research, the research gaps and the waqf’s ignorant research areas within the existing literature to enhance the waqf system. Therefore, this study aims to carry a detailed analysis of waqf research development with a careful evaluation of the scientific panorama’s different aspects inherent in Islamic business and social finance. Design/methodology/approach Scientometrics is a discipline that studies the quantitative characteristics and characteristics of science and technological research, technology and innovation. This research’s string includes waqf as a reference in the “Article title, Abstract and Keywords” based on Scopus from 1990 to 2020. The analysis was conducted in December 2020. The Bibliometrix R Package, VOSviewer and Excel’s software are used to analyse the collected data and apply the bibliometric analysis. Findings The findings derive that waqf research can be categorized into three sub-areas, such as the research on waqf fundamentals, analysis on cash waqf and research on various waqf applications in Islamic social finance. Even though there is some essential or fundamental research in waqf, these are not good enough for such a powerful Islamic social finance instrument. This study finds research gaps in the existing waqf literature and presents nine future research directions. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to examine waqf’s existing literature with bibliometric analysis. The results and the recommended possible research areas can help scholars and researchers to carry future research to enhance the scientific development of Islamic social finance and provide alternative instruments to eradicate poverty in societies.