GLOBAL: Canada’s Shariah compliant equity funds showed resilience in Q1 2025, according to the IFN Investor Funds Database, registering a 5.98% increase in AuM to US$691.22 million from US$652.23 million in Q4 2024. This performance was underpinned by these funds being predominantly invested in world equities – unlike US counterparts, which experienced a 15.09% decline in total Islamic fund AuM, down to US$9.14 billion in Q1 2025. Equity funds, focused on rather volatile US equities during the first quarter, made up 62.5% of the Islamic funds industry in the US.
Meanwhile, non-equity funds – which are invested in instruments of fixed income, money market, mixed assets and real estate – saw a combined 6.17% increase, rising to US$1.02 billion, as investors sought safer, income-generating alternatives. Specifically, Canada’s sole Islamic real estate fund recorded a 9.42% gain, rising to US$51.39 million – likely buoyed by continued demand for Shariah compliant property assets amid a tight commercial property market.
The diverging trends across asset classes and countries underscore an increasingly selective investor appetite and a maturing Islamic fund landscape in the North American region.
