| 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. |