Islamic Character Education and Zakat-Waqf Behavior: An Integrative Review of Emerging Evidence

Abstract

The growing literature on zakat compliance and waqf participation has consistently identified religiosity as a primary predictor of Islamic philanthropic behavior, yet the educational processes through which religious character is formed remain theoretically underspecified. This article synthesizes 170 peer-reviewed articles published between 1998 and 2026, retrieved from Scopus, to examine how Islamic character education relates to zakat and waqf behavioral outcomes. Bibliometric mapping reveals that religiosity functions as the primary bridging construct between Islamic education and Islamic social finance, mediating the relationship through trust, attitude, and prosocial moral foundations. Thematic analysis identifies three principal synthesis themes: the character-formation pathway from tarbiyah to philanthropic disposition, the trust-institution nexus as a behavioral moderator, and the underdevelopment of morality and Islamic education as structurally independent constructs in behavioral models. The findings indicate that existing models conflate religiosity as an outcome of character education with religiosity as an intrinsic motivational force, producing measurement ambiguity that weakens predictive validity. An integrative framework positioning Islamic character education as an upstream antecedent of zakat and waqf behavior is proposed, with implications for educational policy, Islamic social finance mobilization, and behavioral research design.