ISSN 2348-1218 (print) International Journal of Interdisciplinary Research and Innovations ISSN 2348-1226 (online) Vol. 8, Issue 3, pp: (36-39), Month: July - September 2020, Available at: www.researchpublish.com
Non-governmental Organization (NGO) Zakat Management Model: An Exposition Sheriff Muhammad Ibrahim Phd Student, Faculty of Economics and Muamalat, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia.
Abstract: The aftermath of the colonial system have left Muslim communities in a lot of social, religious and constitutional dilemma making it difficult for Muslim communities to adopt or adapt the already replaced Islamic legal systems in favor of the conventional systems. The advent of colonial Masters have seriously affects the traditions of Muslim and abandoned or reduced most of Muslim collective practices to individual. Zakat is among the leading aspects of collective practices made compulsory by Islam with a view to reducing poverty, establishing social welfare through assistance, love and care. Zakat is the third pillar of Islam second to salat. Despite the obligation of zakat and its economic role in the society, the new systems could not recognize. However, many Muslims could not forget the implications of abandoning such important act of ibadah and wrath of Allah that befalls on individuals for refusing to pay zakat. Therefore, upon independence, agitations for the return to zakat practices is intensified among many Muslim communities. The indices of Muslim communities after independence indicates that there are forty Muslim states in the world, sixteen out of which established zakat institutions backed by government laws while others continue to look into ways of fulfilling the religious duties with or with government backed laws. In fact, recent studies indicates that countries that could not have state backing for zakat institutions have higher percentage of zakat collections. This study explores the practices of Non-governmental zakat management among some Muslim communities. The contribution of this study is to guide communities whose legal systems is yet to accept the zakat systems under its legislation. Keywords: Non-governmental Organization (NGO), Muslim communities, zakat institutions.
1. INTRODUCTION Recently, zakat institutions across the globe have made a great impact on the lives of many communities through redistribution of wealth and making sustainable development. This development attracts Muslims of others communities to constitute a centralized zakat management system managed by state or community leaders. This results in new inventions in zakat management involving the entire public. However, Muslim communities living in a Muslim minority states are faced with difficulties in establishing a central zakat management system backed by law. Similarly, Muslims living in a secular country that has no provision of religion in its constitution may face some stiff resistance in trying to constitutionalize zakat system. Some states may go to the extent of prohibiting any forms of tax collections not recognized by law. Among the various actions taken by many governments to reduce poverty is establishment and financing Microfinance Banks. Muslim scholars identified different limitations of Microcredit Programs operated mostly by NGOs in Bangladesh, other studies report that Micro-finance Institutions have been able to reach among half of the poor of the country, but they have failed to reach the hard core poor in particular. The issue of sustainability has become a burning issue to all stakeholders of microfinance due to (a) higher dependence of microfinance on donor funds; (b) high interest rate and operational cost; (c) interest of transforming microfinance programs into financially viable ones to attract commercial funds for scaling up programs. A few studies reveal that in some cases, microfinance has created debt cycles to pay the installments of loan by making fresh loan from moneylenders (Aflatunal Kausar et al. 2013). This circumstance necessitates the establishment of non-governmental zakat organization by some Muslim communities to help promote zakat payments and distribution through centralized zakat management.
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