Sri Lanka’s only Islamic gold fund may entice more investment managers to offer commodities-based offerings in a market dominated by fixed income and equity products.
“I believe that asset-backed Takaful offerings will expand in its market appeal as market segments that are looking for long-term fund-building options such as child education and retirement policies will be attracted to these wealth-creating options,” Gehan Rajapakshe, CEO of Amana Takaful, shared with IFN Investor.
Gehan’s optimism is based on the performance of the country’s only Islamic gold investment fund which has delivered a compound annual growth rate of over 20% in the past four years. The gold fund – offered within a Takaful wrapper – also has the distinction of being the only Muslim-friendly one in the region, and potentially the world, to pay dividends in physical gold.
Islamic commodity funds are largely engineered as ETFs, with the largest vehicles offered the US and the UK, although Turkish funds dominate by fund count, according to the IFN Investor Fund Database.
Chart 1: Islamic commodity funds breakdown as at end of Q1 2026
Table 1: Largest Shariah commodity funds by AuM in the world
| Rankk | Fund | Fund manager | AuM (US$ billion) |
| 1 | SPDR Gold Shares ETF | State Street Global Advisors | 172.75 |
| 2 | SPDR Gold MiniShares Trust | State Street Global Advisors | 30.58 |
| 3 | WisdomTree Physical Gold | WisdomTree Metal Securities | 8.26 |
| 4 | Turkiye Life And Retirement Gold Participation Retirement Investment Fund | Turkiye Hayat VeEmeklilik | 6.37 |
| 5 | Agesa Life And Retirement Gold Participation Retirement Investment Fund | AgeSA Hayat veEmeklilik | 4.27 |
| 6 | Garanti Retirement And Life Gold Participation Retirement Investment Fund | Garanti EmeklilikVe Hayat | 3.25 |
| 7 | Ziraat Portfolio Gold Participation Exchange Investment Fund | Ziraat Portfoy | 2.51 |
| 8 | NewGold ETF | Absa Bank | 2.41 |
| 9 | Anadolu Life Retirement Gold Participation Retirement Investment Fund | Anadolu Hayat Emeklilik | 2.32 |
| 10 | Kuveyt Turk Portfoy Gold Participation Fund | Kuveyt Turk Portfoy | 2.04 |
While Sri Lanka peers have benefited from the surge in commodity prices, especially gold, which has outperformed most major asset classes amid geopolitical fracture, dollar volatility and central bank accumulation, Sri Lankan investors remain underrepresented in this asset class.
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