The Narratives of Islamic Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Muslim Women Entrepreneurs in Malaysia

Entrepreneurship is a pervasive phenomenon driven by the capitalist system, and its associated individualism. Little research has been conducted in Islamic societies where the values or guiding principles of an individuals’ life are often mediated through their religious beliefs and practices. In addition little is known about how Muslim women enact their lived experiences in ways that reflect their religious identities. This article aims to explore how women entrepreneurs construct entrepreneurship in the context of Islam. This research applies a social constructionist lens to increase our understanding of ways in which Malay-Muslim women entrepreneurs construct their Islamic entrepreneurial identities in their everyday lives. In addition this research draws extensively on the notion of culture as a root metaphor approach. The data collection was made through semi-structured interviews, and was analyzed using the thematic analysis. Women entrepreneurs’ narratives of observing the halal (lawful) and haram (forbidden) matters, nawaitu (intention), moderation, prohibition of riba (interest), and sillaturrahim (bond or ties) point to the fact that they highly endorsed and indeed, embraced entrepreneurship as it is promoted in Islam. In foregrounding Islamic values and entrepreneurship, the women’s narratives shed light on how Malay women simultaneously construct and navigate their Islamic identity in relation to entrepreneurship. Notwithstanding, this article portrays women as agents in their own lives. This research adds new knowledge to the field of gender and entrepreneurship, in a nonnormative field of research using an interpretivist paradigm. Also the culture as a root metaphor perspective provides an innovative and important means of examining Islamic entrepreneurship in Malaysia and highlights how this can assist in reframing how we research and theorize entrepreneurship.