AR-RAHNU : A REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND FUTURE RESEARCH

Academicians, practitioners, and other faith-based stakeholders have recognised Ar-Rahnu or Islamic pawn broking as one of micro financing tool to the Muslims. The increasing need for ArRahnu services is influenced by the awareness of the Muslims on the availability of such service and the benefit of using it. In line with this development is academician is growing interest in Ar-Rahnu research, thus create opportunities for interested scholars to assess the development of research in this discipline. This paper purported to review published studies in this discipline since the inception of Ar-Rahnu concept to the current year to identify key trends or issues in ArRahnu research and propose future research agenda. This review, which is the first of its kind, is hoped to be valuable to the present and future Ar-Rahnu scholars interested in the evolution of literature and identifying opportunities for future research.


INTRODUCTION
The academicians, practitioners, and concerned stakeholders have acknowledged Ar-Rahnu as an important component of Islamic micro-financing tool.Ar-Rahnu or better known as Islamic pawn broking can be defined as a method of providing short-term financing to a person by pawning his or her gold to the banks or any Islamic pawnshop as a security.It is one of the micro financing facilities that is available for medium and lower income group who are seeking financial assistance to meet two purposes; firstly, for precautionary purposes and secondly, to meet the individual or family's needs.The example of precautionary purpose is whenever a person encounters unexpected situation such as accident and death, which requires them to have cash (Amin and Chong 2011) whilst the needy are those under the lower income group or small businesses with limited capital or excluded from the mainstream financial system (Hisham et al. 2013).
Muslim users consider Ar-Rahnu as an alternative to conventional pawn-broking services, which offer lending money, or instant cash to the needy.Though Ar-Rahnu has existed since 1992 in Malaysia with the establishment of Muassasah Gadaian Islam Terengganu (MGIT) and there is substantial research on Islamic financing product, less attention has been paid to Ar-Rahnu study.The extremely few studies on Ar-Rahnu remain disintegrated, and there is limited of published empirical research on trend or development in Ar-Rahnu research (ARR).The lack of such study limits our understanding of the current state, issues, and future direction of ARR.Hence, the main aim of this paper is to review development in ARR.To scrutinize this development, a review of research on Ar-Rahnu was performed.The paper uses a chronological review of the literature (Neely 2016;Taticchi et al. 2010) in the field of Ar-Rahnu and its related areas, as presented in the previous section.The review is drawn from an extensive examination of the breadth of Ar-Rahnu related literature without constraints as to a narrow time frame or limited journal list, although special attention was directed to leading journals in the publication of Islamic accounting, shariah, banking, economics, and finance related study.

METHODOLOGY
As the main objective of this paper is to review development in ARR, the following steps were followed.The first step was to choose a group of relevant journals likely to include a study in Ar-Rahnu and Islamic pawn-broking.Due to the scarcity of published journal articles, the search also included seminar and conference proceedings as well as masters and doctoral dissertations.This study primarily used the library and other academic archives.The second step was to identify the articles with main topics related to Ar-Rahnu.At this point, the paper focuses on articles discussion Ar-Rahnu from theoretical or practical perspectives written in two languages which are English and Malay languages.To perform out this identification, a bibliographic search was conducted using the following keywords: Ar-Rahnu, Islamic pawn broking.
researchers performed library archive.The rest of the article (34) consist of 23 quantitative and 11 qualitative empirical studies respectively.The graphical distribution of the number and types of articles are depicted in the below pie chart.It is also evident from Appendix 1 that a few of the studies conducted are dominated by a limited number of researchers i.e. from Southeast Asia particularly Malaysia.Only one (1) study was performed outside the Southeast Asia, which is in India.The questions are why is that so?Why are there only a few contributors to this area?A possible answer is that, as alluded to earlier, many researchers focus on other Islamic financing study and ignore the significance of Ar-Rahnu as a new area to be explored.At that time, too, Ar-Rahnu was almost non-existent or not mandatory in many Muslim countries' jurisdiction.

Journals
Perhaps the surge in interest in Ar-Rahnu in the recent decade could be credited to the rise among the Muslim users of Ar-Rahnu services driven by better understanding of Ar-Rahnu concept by the Muslim consumers as well the increase in Ar-Rahnu providers, especially in Malaysia.Hence, it is not surprising that the dominant country context of most studies in Ar-Rahnu is Malaysia.This can be observed in the ensuing presentation of the findings by themes, methodology, and context.In terms of the number of articles published per year, the range was from three (3) to the year 1986 to 2000 to a maximum of 30 articles in the year 2011 and above, giving an average of 1.7 article per year.As presented in Table 1, overall there was an increase in the number of articles during the period examined, with an average of 0.2 articles per year in the period 1986-2000, 1.7 articles per year in the period 2001-2010 and 5 articles per year in the period 2011 -2016.

Results by themes
To review the trends in Ar-Rahnu since the inception of Ar-Rahnu scheme in the IFI in 1993, this paper divides the period into three : 1986-2000, 2001-2010 and 2011-2016.From the 50 articles, 16 articles are related to customer's related matters while other themes are micro finance and Ar-Rahnu, Ar-Rahnu efficiency, opportunities and challenges and general studies on Ar-Rahnu.
Country cases account for most articles as depicted in Table 2. Figure 2, on the other hand, shows the concentration of the research theme graphically.It seems that customer related issue has become the favourite issue to be studied by most researchers.
Though the conventional pawn broking has been in existence for decades with act governing their operation, such as Pawn Broking Act 1972 (revised in 2004), Islamic pawn broking has only became widely used in the year 1990 onwards.In Malaysia, the Central Bank of Malaysia (CBM) have collaborated with YAPEIM and Bank Kerjasama Rakyat (Bank Rakyat) to offer Islamic pawn broking service in 1993 with its operation in six ( 6) branches.As for research on Ar-Rahnu, only in 1997, the first conceptual paper specifically on Ar-Rahnu was published in an international journal discussing the role of Ar-Rahnu as an instrument to micro enterprise credit (Ismail and Ahmad, 1997).On a different theme, some researchers of Ar-Rahnu have commented on the Ar-Rahnu model practised in Malaysia.Bhatt (2008) elaborated the four (4) concepts within the Ar-Rahnu operation, which are Qaardhul Hasan (benevolent loan), Wadiah Yad Amanah (trustworthiness), Al-Ujrah (safekeeping) and Wadiah Yad Dhamanah (guaranteed safekeeping).Qardh Al-Hasan is an interest free loan, which is granted to the applicant who wishes to pawn his valuable items such as gold.Under this concept, the borrower is required to pay the same amount that he has borrowed to redeem the valuable items at the maturity date of the agreed period.Wadiah Yad Amanah, on the other hand, requires the borrower to produce returnable collateral to ensure the repayment of the loan.If something happens to the collateral items, the lender has no responsibility to replace the missing valuable items.Al-Ujrah, on the other hand, is a concept where lenders can charge the safekeeping fees to the borrower to ensure the collateral items will be in good condition.The lending institutions take precautionary measure by providing security and insurance to ensure the collateral items will be retuned back to the borrower safely after the borrower has settled his debt.These safekeeping fees are called as Al-Ujrah.Lastly, the Wadiah Yad Dhomanah refers to the safekeeping with a guarantee.In this situation, the lender will be responsible for replacing the collateral items if the items are missing or being stolen by somebody.

As shown in
The differences between conventional and Islamic pawn shop also been highlighted by Mohamed Naim (2004) and Bhatt (2008).The customers who chose Ar-Rahnu to conventional pawnshop due to few reasons.Ar-Rahnu is argued to be based on shariah principles, which avoid any interest-based transaction.Besides, it is easier to apply with fast approval, and the cost is considered cheaper than conventional pawn broking.In addition, the storage fees are fixed, and the customers can enjoy longer financing terms with no penalties imposed on them.Finally, if the collateral items that failed to be redeemed will be sold to the third parties and the surplus of the sales will be returned to the borrower (Bhatt, 2008;Mohamed Naim, 2004).
The first study on Ar-Rahnu efficiency was conducted by Maamor & Ismail (2010) and expanded by Samsudin (2012).The study by Maamor & Ismail (2010) across several Ar-Rahnu operators, highlighted that Ar-Rahnu could be a medium for providing funds for the micro and small enterprise.In this case, the efficiency of Ar-Rahnu is being studied and the factor that effects the efficiency Ar-Rahnu also being monitored.Efficiency, to these researchers, was found to be affected by variables such as the firm size, financial self-sufficiency, subsidy, and a group of business.Samsudin (2012), on the other hand, studied the efficiency of Ar-Rahnu scheme to assist the small enterprise in four South-eastern countries which are Malaysia, Brunei, Thailand, and Indonesia revealed that Ar-Rahnu is a medium used by lower income groups as a micro financing tools to earn cash due to the financing limitation imposed by the financial institution.
Normally, people tends to use Ar-Rahnu as a micro financing tools due to the reason that financial institution imposed strict regulations to the public who needs the bank's financing.
In the final period (2011 to 2016), recurring themes includes microfinance and Ar-Rahnu, opportunities and challenges, acceptance of Ar-Rahnu, customers' satisfaction, difference between conventional and Ar-Rahnu and customers' acceptance on Ar-Rahnu.These themes are complemented by a new theme area of study related to ARR, which is the jurisdiction, and shari'ah matters related to Ar-Rahnu.Based on the review, most of the researchers focused on the acceptance of Ar-Rahnu among the consumers as their research theme.This studies were undertaken by Amin (2011) On the other hand, some researchers focused on microfinance theme and Ar-Rahnu such as Abdul Khir et al. (2012); Abdullah (2012); Mokhtar and Zambahari (2013).According to Abdul Khir et al. ( 2012), Ar-Rahnu is essential in micro credit facility in competing for the conventional pawnshop but at the same time, the shariah issues should not be compromised.Mokhtar and Zambahari (2013), however, suggested that Ar-Rahnu could be the most suitable form of micro financing to cater the needs of individuals and small businesses, which has difficulties in obtaining the funding from financial institutions due to the restriction imposed.
Furthermore, Cheong and Sinnakkannu (2012); Hisham et al. (2013); Bahari et al. (2015) focused on opportunities and challenges faced by Ar-Rahnu operators in Malaysia.Ar-Rahnu definitely has opportunities in Malaysia due to cost efficiency and religion, but there are many challenges need to overcome before it can be one of the best medium to improve the quality of life.Mulazid (2012); Nur Hayati Rasmin and Markom (2014); Shah and Yaacob (2016) highlighted on jurisdiction and shariah related matters in Ar-Rahnu.In this situation, the researchers conduct the study to determine the sufficiency of the regulation made by the internal parties to protect both parties in case of dispute or the need for specific laws to govern this Ar-Rahnu practice in Malaysia.
In summary, Ar-Rahnu research began with general issues and Ar-Rahnu operation within the Islamic micro-financing tool and then focus on efficiency, opportunities, and challenges of conducting Ar-Rahnu as well as customer's related matters.In 2010 onwards, the dominant theme was the acceptance of Ar-Rahnu among the consumers.Throughout, researchers in the first and second phase have been discussing on various issues related to AR operation.However, learning from issues and challenges, more studies are needed exploring new themes to tackle issues pertaining to standardized regulation for Ar-Rahnu and shari'ah-compliant Ar-Rahnu towards achieving Maqasid As-shari'ah.

RESULTS BY METHODOLOGY AND CONTEXT
Early studies were merely discussion on the history of Ar-Rahnu services, and how it is being operated in Malaysia (as Malaysian scholars are dominating the articles published), in addition to the literature review discussion on the specific areas discussed.The first empirical study was only noted the second period specifically in 2003 by Abdul Hamid and Abdul Aziz, using a questionnaire to determine the profile of the pawn broking providers.This is followed by another study by Mohamed Naim (2004), who performed a qualitative study by way of content analysis, on the issue of the difference between the conventional pawn broking and Islamic pawn broking (IPB) or Ar-Rahnu.Then, most of the studies were conceptual using the same method of content analysis (Ismail & Sanusi, 2005;Ibrahim & Salleh, 2006;Bhatt &Sinnaknu, 2008 andMohd Taher et al., 2010).Few other studies that used quantitative method i.e. questionnaires distribution was performed by Amin et al. (2007) and Maamor & Ismail (2010).In the third period (2011 to 2016), studies that are more empirical have been performed with a concentration on the topic of AR related to the customers.The studies were mostly using quantitative method through questionnaires survey (Abd Razak et al., 2013;Abd Hamid et al., 2014;Baharum et al., 2015, andAbd Hamid et al., 2016).
16 out of 27 qualitative studies performed are using content analysis where researchers wrote conceptual paper based on their library research on the verses from Al-Quran, hadith, the relevant acts, and prior literature (Ismail, 1997;Ismail and Sanusi, 2005); Ismail, 1997 andHisham et al., 2013).Other non-content analysis qualitative studies used the interview as the medium for data gathering whilst all quantitative studies (22) were performed using questionnaires that ware distributed to the users of Ar-Rahnu services.

CONCLUSION, FUTURE RESEARCH, AND LIMITATIONS
In conclusion, prior studies tend to focus on the same issues of customers' acceptance and satisfaction as well as Ar-Rahnu and microfinance issue.Throughout the review, some theories and models that have been used by the researchers to support the study were service quality model by Wan Daud (2011), hierarchy of effect model (Yaacob, 2014) and theory of reasoned action (Abdi, 2015) which are all Master theses.Future studies may venture into comparative analysis between Ar-Rahnu and other informal finance as a micro-finance provider to the medium and lower income groups.Furthermore, comparative analysis between lending from Ar-Rahnu and the personal loans offered by banks can also been focused besides comparative study on the operation and performance of Ar-Rahnu among the Muslim countries as well as extending the previous studies on standardising the legislation between the Islamic pawn-broking service providers.
The review of studies presented here are not exhaustive but merely a preliminary attempt to initiate further research in the area so that Ar-Rahnu will not be part of forgotten market.The limitation of the study is that it utilised limited empirical studies.

Figure 1 :
Figure 1: Distribution of articles

Figure 2 :
Figure 2: Distribution of articles by year and themes

Table 1 :
Number of Ar-Rahnu articles in the period 1991-

Table 2
Razak (2008) period(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)extended the themes with more researchers exploring issues and challenges in providing Ar-Rahnu, efficiency, acceptance, and satisfaction of the Ar-Rahnu services among customers, comparative study between conventional pawn broking and Ar-Rahnu as well as other issues such as Ar-Rahnu model/framework and Ar-Rahnu keeping fee.This period also sees increases in the Ar-Rahnu providers in Malaysia.According to AbdulRazak (2008), Bank Rakyat, which officially started their operation in Ar-Rahnu back in 1993 with only six (six) branches, has expanded to 112 branches nationwide in 2007.This situation shows that the Malaysians acceptance towards Al-Rahnu has increased tremendously and more Malaysians started to choose Al-Rahnu as an alternative to conventional pawnshop.Furthermore,

Table 2 :
Summary of previous studies by year and themes on Ar-Rahnu Mansor et al. (2014)ed byAmin (2011)focus on an empirical study on the perspective of Muslimah in using Ar-Rahnu in eastern Malaysia particularly in Labuan and Kota Kinabalu.The study found out that religious obligation, transaction cost, and information of Ar-Rahnu were instrumental in determining the use of Ar-Rahnu in Eastern Malaysia.Subsequently,Koe and  Abdul Rahman (2012)emphasized on five factors that influence the customers' acceptance and intention to use Ar-Rahnu that is attitude, social influence, religious obligation, and attractive price.Mansor et al. (2014)have conducted the research specifically the demographic elements in capturing the customers' acceptance towards Ar-Rahnu offered by MAIDAM in Dungun, Mohd Azli et al. (2016)an, and Abdul Halim (2014)12);Mansor et al. (2014);Rasmin and Markom (2014);Abdul Hamid, Abdul Rahman, and Abdul Halim (2014);Abdi (2015);Baharum, Maamor, and Othman (2015)andHamid et al. (2016)respectively.Terengganu.The most recent study on customer byMohd Azli et al. (2016)discussed how the Ar-Rahnu services benefitted the customers.The empirical study which propose a relationship value model of Ar-Rahnu transaction found that the dimension of benefits in Ar-Rahnu in the form of quality service, gold investment, business capital, transparent, staff competency, and product feature have a positive and significant effect on long-term relationship between Ar-Rahnu customer and institutions.
The substantial material may be available in Arabic or other languages which if analysed could have yielded further insight into the development of Ar-Rahnu.Notwithstanding this limitation, this study offers insight and practical help to scholars in the field and novice researcher on this topic by formulating a research agenda for subsequent study.Finally, this paper is invaluable to those Ar-Rahnu professionals who wish to gain a better understanding of the current situation.