66 Years of Religious Research in Marketing: What Does Literature Have to Reveal?

ABSTRACT: Over the past 66 years, religion has had a wide impact on marketing, including ethics, consumer behavior, and market dynamics. This bibliometric study of 744 Scopus-indexed publications from 1959 to 2025 shows how the field has changed over time and shows that there are geographic and topic imbalances. The U.S., Malaysia, and Indonesia make up 41% of all output. The Journal of Islamic Marketing has the highest H-index (39), showing that Southeast Asia is the most important theme. Even though it has been growing steadily (3.96% a year). Islamic issues (such as halal and Sharia finance) make up 37.77% of studies, whereas non-Abrahamic religions (such as Buddhism and Hinduism) make up less than 2%. Quantitative methods are used more often than qualitative ones, with Structural Equation Modeling (24.6%) being the most common. Ethnography (2.02%) is one of the least common. Bibliographic coupling finds six groups: (1) Religion and Tourist Behavior, (2) Ethical Behavior, (3) Cultural Consumption, (4) The Halal Industry, (5) Financial Services, and (6) Durable Behavior. This study had marked several discussions about the existent geographical disparities of the literature, the dominance of Islamic themes, and the major reliance on quantitative methodologies in the field.