Waqf as a socio-economic institution

Syed Khalid Rashid’s lead paper titled ‘Potential of Waqf in Contemporary World’ is a welcome addition to the growing literature on waqf. This brief writeup focuses more on waqf as a ‘socio-economic institution’ and to place waqf as the ‘third’ or voluntary sector of the economy. It will raise some points on a variety of important‘issues’ essential for the revival of waqf which, it is hoped, will complement the lead article. In addition, this paper will share findings and draw from a research project (of which the author was a part of) on Waqf and Higher Education (termed as LRGSWaqf), to support arguments put forward

Third sector socio economic models: how waqf fits in?

In this paper, various theoretical frameworks of third sector (voluntary sector) economy are investigated with the aim of proposing a sustainable and inclusive socio- economic development model. An economic model that incorporates the third sector, together with the public and private sectors, is argued to be not only economically viable, but ethically superior, in achieving socio-economic development. Waqf is considered to be one of the most important institutions of third sector that exists in the Islamic heritage. Waqf, like many other third sector organisations (TSOs), needs to be recognised formally in efforts to build contemporary economic development frameworks. To achieve this, the paper calls also for multi-dimensional improvements in the management of TSOs, including waqf

Selected issues in Islamic economics education and the way forward

The past recent decades witnessed a steady growth of ‘Islamization of knowledge’ efforts in the wake of intellectual resurgence of the Muslim world, not least in the discipline of economics. Since the 1980s, there have been an increasing number of institutions around the world attempting to offer courses and programs in Islamic economics (and since the 1990s in Islamic Banking and Finance). Despite the encouraging progress so far, literature specifically in the area of Islamic economics education is rather limited. This chapter seeks to highlight selected critical issues that have arisen in the teaching of Islamic economics as reflected by the experiences of the Southeast Asian universities, namely the Quality of human resources involved in the delivery of the integration and Islamization efforts and the availability of reference materials to support the teaching and learning process. In view of these issues, the chapter also attempts to offer some possible avenues to find solutions to these challenges, as well as planning for the future of Islamic economics education. In this context, the chapter discusses the importance of developing an Usul (methodology) for Islamic economics, which takes into account various aspects of Islamic heritage concerning economic dealings, behavior and institutions beyond the realm of the fiqhi (legalistic) aspect of the Shari’ah. Finally, the chapter highlights the need for regional cooperation to further strengthen the collective efforts in the development of Islamic economics education, particularly in the Southeast Asian region

Economic Thought, Foundational Problems of Mainstream Economics and the Alternative of Islamic Economics

Economic thought always permeated human living. Economic thought and the development of economics as a discipline in the last few centuries made it central to the world order. However, the foundational problems that mainstream economics suffers from led to uncounted crises and issues within the same order that created it. A physicalist ontology, rationalist epistemology, axiological futility, and methodological deficiency are the problems of philosophical foundations of mainstream economics we reviewed in this paper. The methodology of this paper is qualitative and generally adopts the library research and critical content analysis methods to review and respond to identified foundational problems. Muslims islah and tajdid responses to the West and mainstream economics problems and issues found shape in Islamisation of Knowledge (IOK) and Islamic Economics (IE). The recent shift to Integration of Knowledge (IoK) universalizes the appeal and revives the zeal for IE development in light of IoK based on IOK in this paper. A thorough analysis of IOK, IoK, and IE responses to the West and mainstream economics enabled us to appraise it as the alternative and solution to the foundational problems. The paper clarified the way for future research in IE in light of IoK and directed the academia and industry towards economic reasoning based on robust foundations

Corporate social responsibility (CSR): is it enough for sustainable development?

Corporate Social Responsibilty (CSR) has become a buzword al over the world. A company can distinguish it from others through CSR and we se that wel-known companies actualy not only diferentiate their brands and reputations but also their products and services taking care of the societies and environments where they operate. Some influential Islamic scholars also find significant similarities of Islamic teaching on busines ethics to the CSR agenda. So, conclusion can be drawn that CSR is immensely helpful to atain sustainable growth and development. However, CSR is not above criticism and now being criticized because of its absence of any generaly acepted common framework and indulging in many activities in the name of CSR rather than activities that truly addres society’s presing neds such as poverty aleviation, income gap minimization, employment generation, basic ned fulfilment etc. in this situation it is pertinent to ask whether CSR is enough for sustainable development or is it necesary to go beyond CSR. This paper argues that CSR is important but there is a spectrum of ethical options beyond CSR. Besides CSR, this paper discuses the concept of corporate waqf in Malaysia and Social Busines (SB) developed by Nobel Laureate Mohammad Yunus as two posible options. This paper wil criticaly evaluate thre models of social responsibilities i.e., CSR, Social busines, and Corporate Waqf. Necesary case studies wil be placed in support of our arguments and it wil be shown why is it necesary to go beyond CSR and pay atention to alternative in order to achieve sustainable growth and development with greater justice

The possibility of using waqf to finance the Malaysian federal government's public expenditure

The purpose of this paper is to examine thepossibility of using waqf to finance the federal government’s public expenditures in Malaysia. The arguments werebasedon the primary data gathered from semi-structuredinterviews with waqf experts. The resultshows that waqf can financethe Malaysian federal government’s public expenditure for three reasons; Shari’ah permissibility, there is evidence of implementation in past Muslim economiesand political will from the federal government. This study is motivatedby Malaysia’s persistent primary deficit, Malaysia’s rising debt to GDP, and the versatile nature of waqf that could address these problems. Due to the exploratory nature of this study, qualitativeresearch was conductedthrough the employment of semi-structuredinterviews. The thematic analysis was then performedon the interview transcripts. Literary evidencewasalso mentioned to ensure the concurrentvalidity of the mentioned results. The findings of this paper may add to the existing literature on the solutions to the burgeoning government expenditure and debt. Even more so, this article motivates researchers to explore the arising issues stemming from this particular waqf implementation

The role of zakat and waqf institutions in enhancing small and medium enterprises towards the socio-economic development of Muslim countries: leveraging on Malaysia’s potentials

Zakat and Waqf institutions have played a significant role in the socio-economic development of Muslims throughout Islamic civilization. This role had declined during the colonial period but is now being revived by several contemporary Muslim countries. This research was conducted to study the current practice and propose means to harness the potential of these two institutions and direct them to enhance the socio-economic development of the Ummah via assisting in developing SMEs

Integrated waqf based islamic microfinance model (IWIMM) for poverty alleviation in OIC member countries

Poverty dominates the agenda of developing countries. Poverty was and still is one of the major impediments of human progress and societal development. Its existence is as old as human history while its alleviation is attributed to effective and successfull economic policies. Various approaches/policies are offered towards reducing poverty. These policies vary depending on time, space and the country concernced. However, reduction of poverty the major goal of many economic systems as stated by the Millenium Development Goals, thought sometimes not explicitly stated It was found that in OIC member countries religious and cultural norms drive preference of Islamic microfinance over conventional microfinance.The study further developed an Integrated waqf based Islamic micrfinance model (IWIMM) for poverty reduction in OIC memebr countries.This is expected to overcome the challenges of conventional microfinance such as, high cost of capital, low quality of human resource, vulnerabilites of poor borrowers due to lack of sustainable takaful and limited products for the clients with different occupationanl backgrounds. However, the model is yet to be verified empirically. Thus, further studies should be conducted to test the model using quantitative techniques such as, structural equation modelling (SEM)