A Treatise on Socioeconomic Roles of Zakah

Abstract

Promotion of socioeconomic security peaks as state policy drive especially in developing and emerging economies. Waqf as a socioeconomic tool emphatically forms part of the ethical values of Islam and is seen as a primary vehicle for financing Islam as a society. This paper analyses the socioeconomic roles that Waqf institution in tackling social security challenges for upliftment of the Muslim Ummah. The paper employs a non- experimental qualitative research methodology based on deductive method of analysis of jurisprudential and literature based-evidences. A socioeconomic framework was intuitively developed by the paper for logical analysis. It was found that socioeconomically, Waqf institutions across the Islamic world have played immeasurable roles in the areas of provision of social and economic infrastructures, lessening the burden of tax and budget deficits, closing the short fall in tax revenues, tackling poverty and income inequality, boosting economic growth, promoting independent provision of public goods and development of active civil society bonded by spirit of compassion and communalism as against that apathy and individualism. The paper strongly urges the Muslim Ummah to reestablish and reassert the roles Waqf institutions to free itself from socioeconomic misadventures.