Alleviation of rural poverty in Malaysia: the role of Zakat, a case study
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Date
01/07/2011Author
Mahamod, Lukman Hakim
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Abstract
This study focuses on the factors contributing to the lack of emphasis by the Kedah
Department of Zakat (KDoZ), Malaysia on the alleviation of poverty among the rural
poor through zakat capital assistance programmes and employment opportunities. In
this study, seven research questions were outlined. A mixed-methods study was
developed to answer research questions 1, 2, 3 and 4. Research questions 5, 6 and 7
were answered using qualitative data. Quantitative data was collected from
questionnaire. The sample size was 406 participants from among the capable poor
who can work which received annual monetary assistance. Qualitative data was
generated from the interviews with KDoZ officers (n=11) and participants for the
qualitative method were selected purposefully. The responses to research questions
1, 2,3 and 4 show that the majority of the respondents were not aware of the
existence of SHS. Respondents’ awareness towards SHS programme is significantly
related with the socio-economic and zakat assistance characteristics which are rate of
districts’ collection, number of years respondents receive zakat and distance of
respondents’ house from the KDoZ office. 80% of respondents interested to apply for
the SHS programme. The factors contributing to apply SHS were current zakat
assistance, current income, economic activity, lack of motivation and constraints.
Furthermore, the lack of interest in SHS was significantly related to the age of the
respondents. In answering research question 5, there were 3 factors leading to this
approach by the KDoZ: 1) the KDoZ faces the constraints of low zakat collection
caused by two subscales; 2) a high rate of failure among the recipients or the poor in
economic activities; and 3) incompetence of members of the KDoZ committee. The
answers to research question 6 were difficulties in dealing with the poor,
responsibility of the state government, and the committee’s lack of interest. The
answers to research question 7 were factors related to politics, the committee and
priority in providing financial assistance. There are 5 main findings which hindered
the effective use of zakat, which are capitalist thinking, local collection rates,
avoiding the query of Sultan, a large number of committee members and limited
zakat funds allocated for administration. Finally, recommendations were provided to
overcome these problems. Several additional recommendations for future research
have emerged from this study and these have been briefly outlined.