Revive Awqaf for Better Ummah Socio-Economy, Muslim Countries Told

By Zairina Zainudin KUCHING (Sarawak), Nov 23 (Bernama) -- Muslim countries should revive the utilisation of Awqaf or Islamic Trusts as a way to improve the socio-economic standing and wellbeing of the Muslim ummah, said South Africa National Awqaf Foundation Chief Executive Officer, Zeinoul Abedien Cajee. In making the call, he said Awqaf could be tapped into for any productive purposes in the society as long as it complied with the principles of Shariah, thus driving various development projects in their respective areas of establishment. "Due to colonisation, nationalisation and so forth, this system (Awqaf) has became almost buried in the sand of history. "Now we have realised the value and importance of these traditional Islamic financial system (including sukuk). “We need to revitalise and re-establish Awqaf as a workable viable system that would help finance small businesses, infrastructure and many other socio investments as well as socio financial projects within the community across the world," he told Bernama on the sidelines of the 13th World Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF) here Thursday. Awqaf and waqf (Islamic endowment) have been the traditional Islamic financial institution from the time of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and during the Ottoman empire when it really blossomed to become one of the major financial institutions to support the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) by giving loans to people across the empires. Waqf may be structured on real assets or cash-waqf where financial assets are utilised to generate returns such as investment in Islamic securities or sukuk. The Trusts have recorded impressive achievement in serving the poor, providing various public services such as healthcare services, educational institutions, infrastructure especially the construction of worship places and other welfare services. "At present, many Muslim countries do have state-run waqf organisations. But what they need to do now is to decentralise and make it more civil society initiative so that people will liberalise the whole awqaf system in the Muslim world," Zeinoul Abedien said. He believed the non-governmental organisations were the ideal vehicle to undertake this revitalisation effort. Sharing such effort in South Africa, he said the country had re-established Awqaf 17 years ago, "whereas this should have been started 350 years ago." He said Awqaf had enabled South Africa to invest those fund and then use income that generated from the fund to provide small loans to small businesses. "We should encourage young people to start small businesses even on their own (capital). We (Muslim countries) need to have this Awqaf system to be able to start financing our SMEs," he added. -- BERNAMA