Financial Market Segmentation: An Application on Islamic Financial Markets.

Muslim world comprises of a considerable part of the earth's population and there are many Muslim states in the world. People who adopted the Islam religion have a distinctive understanding of life based on Al-Quran, Hadith and Sharia. Therefore, all the deeds of Muslims must be in accordance with the way of Islam and Sharia. Finance is an issue in which Sharia prevails. According to the principles of Sharia, conventional financial applications are not proper for Muslims. Therefore, certain financial instruments and regulations are implemented to comply with the rulings of Islam and Sharia. Moreover, the aim of this study is to analyze the financial markets in Muslim countries resting on dependable international resources such as macro economical and financial indicators, and segmenting them by using statistical methods as Cluster and Discriminant analysis. As a result, it is concluded that financial markets in Muslim countries can be segmented by using certain financial indicators. Yet, financial markets in Muslim countries cannot be segmented by using certain economic indicators but, these indicators can be used to discriminate the financial market segments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]