Journal of Emerging Economies and Islamic Research

Cash Waqf for education: Prospects and challenges

Ridzwan Bakar — Sat, 30 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0200

This article is written based on author’s personal experience with waqf program implementation (philantrophy activities) mainly in executing cash waqf for education in Malaysia, Indonesia and Cambodia. In particular, the article provides brief literature on waqf and cash waqf, describes success story, highlights prospects and challenges in implementing cash waqf for education.

Exploring trade practice and market before and after the advent of Islam in Arabia

Irfan Shahid — Thu, 31 May 2018 00:00:00 +0200

Trade and commerce is an integral part of human civilisation. Trade practice before the advent of Islam is a great concern for researchers and students of Islamic Business. It was based on injustice and dishonesty. Islam abolished these customs and propounded the modules based on justice and balance. This is a theoretical attempt to explore the nature and methods of trade prevalent in Arabia before the Islam. This paper also highlights some rulings of Islam made to govern the trade and market.

A time series analysis of determinants of FDI in Afghanistan: Which one matters the most, security or economic growth?

Abdul Fareed Delawari — Thu, 31 May 2018 00:00:00 +0200

Afghanistan has been practicing market economic system since 2002. Since then, the government has been initiating different policies and announced various incentives to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) to the country. However, the outcome has not been satisfactory due to several political and economic factors. This paper explores the relationship between security, economic growth and FDI in Afghanistan, using ARDL model. The paper covers a period from 2002 to 2016. The empirical results of this study show that there is a negative long-term relationship between security and FDI. Hence, the author concludes that, to attract FDI to the country, insuring security should be the top priority of the government of Afghanistan.

Zakah on shares: Theory and reality in Malaysia

Muhammad Ikhlas Rosele, Luqman Haji Abdullah — Thu, 31 May 2018 00:00:00 +0200

Zakah (Islamic almsgiving) on shares are generally mentioned indirectly in classical fiqh books. This is due to the fact that the practice of shares is relatively new in classical Islamic jurisprudence literature. However, the basis of the debate on shares can be traced to its establishment and development in the classical fiqh discourse. Muslim individual and Muslim-operated companies have been involved in investment and share-trading, thus creating the debate of zakah on shares in Malaysia. Therefore, the objective of this study is to highlight the discussion of zakah on shares based on the reality in Malaysia. The focus of the debate will touch the aspects of legal shares, fiqh of zakah and its method of calculation.

Application of normative frameworks for assessing availability of socio-economic policies based on maqasid al shari’a principles in Muslim countries: A proposal

Mustapha Abubakar, Kabiru Jinjiri Ringimb — Thu, 31 May 2018 00:00:00 +0200

The objective of this paper is to propose a framework that will assess the availability of maqasid al shari’a based socio-economic policies in Muslim countries, and whose nebulous institutions are perturbed by the statistic that 504 million people are living in multi-dimensional poverty, suffering from range of deprivations in forty-three member countries of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB). Lack of or weak access to adequate resources remain the primary issues faced by many nations. In the midst of this though, there is a recurring argument that the level of socio economic development of human well-being must be improved. To understand development challenges of socio-economic framing in the current Muslim world, factors such as education, health, spirituality, lives and property, economy, food security as well as youth employment as based on maqasid al shari’ah framework model merit consideration. Accordingly, this paper seeks to address the gap in the current literature by incorporating education and youth unemployment factors into the socio-economic development model which is based on maqasid al sharia’h framework. The study adapted the principles of Islamic divine law that ensures an inclusive socio-economic development policy devoid of tribal, ethnic or religious sentiments. The study offered recommendations for further research on maqasid al sharia’ah applications on the socio-economic development of both Muslim and Muslim-minority countries.

Determination of poverty among the poor and needy in a developing country

Ahmad Fahme Mohd Ali, Mohd Faisol Ibrahim — Thu, 31 May 2018 00:00:00 +0200

This article attempts to analyse the determination of poverty among the poor and needy of the zakat recipients in Kelantan, Malaysia. The study is motivated from the Kelantan zakat collection (2003-2015) that suggests that the growth alone (high collection) is not enough to eliminate poverty, there are indeed, other elements of poverty eradication like the socio economic, demographic factors, remittances and the investments in social and economic factors like the food subsidy for the poorest, good quality education, opportunities for the most needy, regulation of job markets, and purposively designed social security nets also have significant impact on permanent reduction in poverty. In Kelantan, despite zakat centres having disbursed an increasing amount of expenditure annually on the two categories of zakat recipients, hitherto the number of fuqara (poor) and masakin (needy) households is still increasing (MAIK, 2014; JAWHAR, 2012). Thus, it is important to understand the nature and scale of poverty, the various driving forces that affect it and the determinants of poverty among the poor and needy as linked to this process. A sample of 505 households from 2016 Household Expenditure Survey (HES) among the poor and needy zakat recipients in Kelantan has been used in this study. The findings have important policy implications for Kelantan Zakat Department (MAIK) in making the zakat distribution becomes more efficient and uplift the important role of zakat as one of the poverty alleviation tools among the Muslims. This study recommends the method of zakat distribution should be improved and channelled accordingly in order to strengthen the Muslims economy condition and then, it would facilitate the poverty alleviation programmes by the zakat department.

Need of elevating the role of shariah board and portraying them significantly on Islamic bank websites: Why and how?

Tahreem Noor Khan — Thu, 31 May 2018 00:00:00 +0200

Islamic banking emerged rapidly to fulfil the financial needs of Muslim consumers, by using different viable modes of Islamic financing. These tools of financing were designed to avoid risk-free return, unjustified increase of money on money and uncertainty. To make these tool authentic, in all Islamic bank, Shariah board members are the pillar of the management structure. The presence of renowned scholars in a bank actually helps to increase the worth of a Shariah financial brand as they are the one who oversee and supervise the activities of banks. However, it is noticed that confusion and misperception exist generally about Islamic banks due to lack of devising authentic products, modes of structure and operational default. To identify the customer perception about Shariah scholars, Online Survey was conducted. In total 92 respondents participated. With that, 14 top Islamic bank websites (Bahrain, Lebanon, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Srilanka, Indonesia, Bangladesh, UAE, Pakistan, Malaysia, Kuwait, Jordan, Eygpt, Oman) was observed to figure how they have given importance and exposure to the Shariah board members. The findings suggested that web-marketing could highlight the role of Shariah scholars so that both users and non-users of Islamic banks were able to learn more about the machinery of Islamic financial products. In addition, Shariah board scholars should consciously reconsider and review their past and present approaches so as to perform better in the future.