The purpose of this research is to review historical development of Islamic finance in individual East Asian economies, including China, Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong, and examine the success factors of the Hong Kong Sukuk issuances in 2014-2017. The research is a qualitative study applying case study method. It is found that the East Asian economies do play efforts to develop their Islamic capital markets although they have very limited size of Muslim population. Their progress on this development generally remains to be slow. The Hong Kong Sukuk is a breakthrough, carrying a total issuance value of US$3 billion. The Sukuk issuances, treated as a kind of asset-backed securities with restrictions on financing purposes, are distributed to international investors by investment banks from Hong Kong, Middle East and Malaysia. Success factors of these issuances include involvement of an issuer with high credit quality, recognition by central bank for using the Sukuk in its discount facility for commercial banks, centralized clearing services for the Sukuk and global banking network for underwriting the Sukuk. The lessons from the Hong Kong Sukuk are good references for other economies to develop their regional Islamic capital markets and to integrate the markets into the global capital market.

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the limelight question ‘why India should open arms for Islamic banking?’. Research design, data, and methodology - The paper is theoretical and conceptual in nature and provides results based on significant literature review. Results - This paper will start with the discussion why Islamic name does not make it only for Muslims?, then its features and how it can improve India’s current economic situation. Also this study will analyze the ability of Islamic finance to act as Micro-finance tool by including people who does not participate in economic activities. This paper also concludes that why religious issue should be sidelined in order to accept Islamic finance for empowerment of Muslim and non-Muslim minorities which live in abject poor conditions. Conclusions - Islamic finance has lot of merits which cannot be ignored by only looking at the name and believing that it is only for Muslims. Indian economic system needs a financial system which will work for welfare and not for profit to help poor communities in coming out of poverty. Interest free loans and micro-finance tools are the only way to help below poverty line population to raise their income level.