Reflections on the Socioecomic Role of Waqf in an Islamic Economic System

Abstract

Promotion of socioeconomic security peaks as a major public 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 and the society. This paper aims to provide reflections over the socioeconomic roles of 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. The paper establishes that socioeconomically, waqf institutions across the Islamic world 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 of apathy and individualism. The paper strongly urges the Muslim Ummah to reestablish and reassert the roles of waqf institutions to free itself from socioeconomic misadventures.