Asia's emergence as the healthiest engine of global economic growth is as evident in Islamic finance as it is in the conventional banking sector. The Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) region remains the core of Islamic finance, accounting for more than 40% of total sharia-compliant assets.

The 30 new entrants for this year's Top 500 Islamic Financial Institutions ranking include some from five countries not previously represented in the survey, conveying the dynamism of a sector that continues to expand into uncharted markets.

How profitable are Islamic financial institutions? With Islamic instruments and different reporting standards in some cases, direct comparisons with traditional western interest-bearing instruments have often been difficult to make.

Islamic finance covers many areas and in this exercise The Banker did not want to exclude any Islamic financial institution. Clear definitions of what constitutes a non-bank institution need to be improved but we wanted to include not only investment banking operations and Islamic investment companies, as distinct from banks, but also Islamic insurance operations.

The Top 15 countries in the world by sharia-compliant assets (SCAs) are determined not only by the size of each country’s financial sector but also the degree to which it is sharia compliant.

The Top 500 Islamic financial institutions in the world have amassed sharia-compliant assets of $500.5bn according to The Banker’s first comprehensive listing of the Islamic finance industry.

Long-term viability and sustainability will come from increased interoperation between sharia-compliant financial institutions throughout the world, says Joe DiVanna.

Islamic finance has established solid roots in the Gulf states, Malaysia and Indonesia and is set for a roll-out to the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims, with all the challenges that this entails.