Religiosity influence on the buying behavior of Muslim consumers / Badrul Hisham Kamaruddin and Rohani Mohd

Conventional studies have proven that religion has played some role in the purchase decision. In Islam, however, religion plays a very important role in the purchase decision. There are many theoretical models of Islamic consumption developed by Islamic Economists, but very few are based on empirical research. This prompted the realization of this study. This study is a replication of Adila's (1999) works, but by focusing solely on Muslim consumers. Majority of the respondents were the staff of the Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) and the Malaysian Resources Corporation Berhad (MRCB), both in Shah Alam. The data collected was analyzed using the linear regression analysis. The findings indicated that religious Muslims in Shah Alam generally take Islam as their source of reference and they spend moderately as commanded by Allah in the Holy Qur'an. Finally, the researchers concluded that the religion Islam has greater influence compared to the other factors, such as, age; gender, occupation; salary; and education. This interesting finding reveals a significant reminder to entrepreneurs that they cannot neglect the element of religion in their marketing activities, particularly in the development of products.