Understanding the Lived Experience of Barakah in Investment Decision-Making among Islamic Finance Managers

Abstract

Islamic finance has emerged as a global framework that integrates economic performance with moral accountability and spiritual ethics rooted in shariah principles. Within this discipline, the concept of barakah a divine form of blessing that ensures ethical prosperity has been acknowledged theoretically but remains underexplored as a lived professional experience. Despite extensive literature on Islamic ethical finance, little is known about how finance managers perceive and internalize barakah in their investment decision-making processes. This study addresses this gap by asking: How do Islamic finance managers experience and interpret the meaning of barakah within their professional responsibilities? Using an interpretative phenomenological approach (IPA), this research reveals that barakah is experienced as a spiritual compass guiding ethical intent, moral accountability, and rational decision-making in financial practice. Data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews with ten Islamic finance managers across Indonesia and Malaysia and analyzed thematically to uncover essential experiential meanings. The findings demonstrate that barakah functions as both a spiritual assurance and a practical principle that harmonizes profitability with divine accountability, reshaping the perception of success within Islamic business management. Uniquely, the study identifies three experiential dimensions—spiritual intentionality, ethical restraint, and transcendental assurance—that extend beyond existing Islamic finance theories and offer an empirically grounded lens for understanding barakah in managerial praxis. This study contributes to the growing discourse on Islamic ethics by bridging the gap between theological understanding and lived managerial experience. The results offer theoretical and practical insights for developing spiritually grounded models of decision-making in Islamic financial institutions. However, the study is limited by its small sample size and geographic concentration in Indonesia and Malaysia, suggesting the need for broader cross-regional investigations in future research.