Indebtedness Issue Among AL-GHARIMIN in Brunei Darussalam

Abstract

This study aims to give the true meaning of “debt” from the perspective of Islam and identify the definitions of al-Gharimin based on the view of Jurists of the four madhÉhib and Brunei practice. It also seeks the types of debt owed by al-Gharimin recipients as well as investigates the main factors and impacts of being in debt that lead to an arising issue on unexpected rising numbers of al-Gharimin applicants in Brunei Darussalam. This study will only focus on one crucial issue i.e. the indebtedness issue. By identifying the issue beforehand, effective solutions will be recommended to tackle the problem. This study adopts descriptive and survey methods on the data collection. There are seven types of debt found during the survey and the majority are being in debt for government loan schemes, followed by private debts, financing loan and so on. It is found that among the main factors of being in debt are having small amount of monthly income, taking care of a large number of dependants, difficulty in getting job, settling other debts and many more. Thus, the impacts of being indebtedness led to many problems which include family problems, multiple debts occured, feeling disorders, bankruptcy and many more that caused troubles to al-Gharimin themselves. Findings from this research are to guide al-Gharimin Unit and al-Gharimin themselves to surpass the issue. Hence, some recommendations have been suggested in order to mitigate the indebtedness issue among al-Gharimin as well as to raise awareness on this issue.