Page 36 - Zakat & Waqf: Impact on Women and Community Development

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© Zakat & Waqf: Impact on Women and Community Development
ISBN 978-967-####-##-#

as the most structured system that enables the collection and
redistribution of zakat through a centralized national institution, and is
benchmarked by other Islamic countries (Migdad, 2019). There are
eight categories of recipients of zakat as stated in the Qur'an in Al-
Taubah (verse 60) which are the poor, those who provide service, the
weak, those whose hearts want to be reconciled, free captives or slaves,
those in debt for God's purpose, and for travel (Migdad, 2019).
According to Migdad (2019), in Malaysia zakat institutions adopt a
consumption-based mechanism in zakat distribution, by providing
food, shelter, education, and refugee support. In another paper written
by Ab Rahman et al, (2012), they asserted that the redistribution of
zakat is still inefficient in terms of providing support to those in need,
while being unable to demand zakat from all Muslims who have the
obligation to pay zakat. As a result, Malaysian zakat still fails to
eradicate poverty and improve the standard of living of Muslims in
Malaysia. In addition, most zakat money was spent mostly during
Ramadan for Iftar, two days for Aidilfitri, and three to four days for
Aidil Adha (Migdad, 2019).

However, the Kenya Zakat in Kenya has supported women-led
households in starting a business, such as selling food, and running
small kiosks by the roadside to sell milk, vegetables, oil, etc.
Furthermore, the Kenya Zakat has facilitated women in getting
business leases and paying rent on behalf of women entrepreneurs to
support these women to venture into businesses (Latif, 2021).

The main purpose of this paper is to focus on the redistribution of
zakat through state-centred institutions to "asnaf" women
entrepreneurs to improve their standard of living and eradicate poverty
among Muslim women in Malaysia. Since the redistribution of zakat is
unable to eradicate poverty, waqf could be an option to ease the issue.

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