Social Empowerment Through Islamic Finance

Author(s):  
Mustapha Abubakar

Islamic social finance as an order ordained by Allah (Subhanahu wa Taala) for the benefit of mankind, seeks to provide an avenue for financial inclusion as well as entrenching social cohesion among Muslim communities across the globe. This is achieved with the application of Zakat (compulsory alms giving), Waqf (Islamic endowment), Sadaqah (Voluntary charity giving), and Qard (Loan giving) as the instruments. As poverty remains a social disorder and an affront to human prosperity, Islam has provided a remedy to its scourge. This chapter presents a discussion on poverty reduction if these instruments are effectively implemented in Muslim communities across the globe.

2005 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 366-382
Author(s):  
Dina Sensi

The European action named “Faiths and Social cohesion”. Building up Social Participation in Religious Difference: Local Muslim Communities inEurope» was assessed during the last six months of the project. The objective was to assess the impact of the actions taken. 


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 168-182
Author(s):  
David Mhlanga ◽  
◽  
Steven Henry Dunga ◽  
Tankiso Moloi ◽  
◽  
...  

The study sought to investigate the impact of financial inclusion on poverty reduction in Zimbabwe among the smallholder farmers. It is alleged that financial inclusion can help in achieving seven of the seventeen sustainable development goals (SDGs), which include poverty eradication in all its forms everywhere, ending hunger, achieving food security, ensuring improved nutrition as well as promoting sustainable agriculture and many others. Using the simple regression method, the study discovered that financial inclusion has a strong impact on poverty reduction among smallholder farmers. The study went on to discover that, for the government to tackle poverty especially among the smallholder farmers, it is important to ensure that farmers do participate in the financial sector through saving, borrowing and taking out insurance among other services. So, it is important for the government of Zimbabwe to fully implement policies that encourage financial inclusion such as making sure that farmers find it easy to access financial institutions and encouraging financial institutions to review transaction costs like bank account opening charges periodically, implementing financial education programs among the farmers because these variables are important in influencing farmers to participate or preventing them from using financial services.


Author(s):  
Lettiah Gumbo ◽  
Precious Dube ◽  
Muhammad Ridwan

One of the most effective catalysts of economic growth of any nation is obviously financial inclusion. However, in developing countries such as Zimbabwe gender gap is still an impediment to the achievement of financial inclusion for all. Research findings for this paper show that, increasing women’s financial opportunities and financial awareness on how to access financial products and services will go a long way in reducing the gender gap. Furthermore, increasing access to and use of quality financial products and services is essential to inclusive economic growth and poverty reduction. Although the government of Zimbabwe is taking steps to increase women financial inclusiveness, research shows that women in Zimbabwe trail behind men in as far as access to financial services is concerned. Zimbabwean communities remain dominantly patriarchal and women are always lagging behind in developmental projects meant for their empowerment. This paper seeks to assess the implementation of women’s financial inclusion highlighting opportunities and barriers such as the gender gap and how this may be overcome. The study is qualitative in nature and therefore makes use of interviews and questionnaires for data collection. It is envisioned by the researchers that the research findings will be beneficial to women; their empowerment and development and national development. It is hoped to change the way in which the banking and financial sectors deal with women’s financial inclusion for the betterment of their livelihoods.  Furthermore, women’s financial empowerment will improve livelihoods of many families given the caring nature of mothers, sisters, aunts and grandmothers.


Author(s):  
Hatta Syamsuddin ◽  
Abdul Khaliq Hasan ◽  
Moh Muinudinillah

The emergence of Islamic banking was considered as a response to the desire of Muslim communities to disassociate from usury (riba-based) system. The development of time increasing the diversity of financial transactions, both in trading and banking business, which has no provisions in the old sources of Islamic jurisprudence. This dangerous phenomenon was the reason for the importance of a Sharia Supervisory Board to ensure all of the banking transactions comply with the rules and principles of sharia. This research focused on the role of National Sharia Board and his methodology in the fatwa. This research uses analytical descriptive methodology. The limitations of this research were about: how the National Sharia Board played their roles in Indonesia and how the method applied by the National Sharia Board in issuing a fatwa. The research found that: the National Sharia Board in Indonesia has played their roles, especially in developing Islamic finance industry, ensuring financial and banking transaction comply with the rules and principles of sharia, and providing awareness and guidance to the Muslim communities. The issuing of fatwa on financial transactions was the authority of the National Sharia Board. The National Sharia Board hold on procedures, specific steps, and certain agreed methodology in issuing the fatwa. Nevertheless, there still some fatwas that caused controversy in the Islamic community


Author(s):  
Rohit Bhattacharya

The concept of Financial Inclusion is not a new one. It has become a catchphrase now and has attracted the global attention in the recent past. Lack of accessible, affordable and appropriate financial services has always been a global problem. It is estimated that about 2.9 billion people around the world do not have access to formal sources of banking and financial services. India is said to live in its villages, a convincing statement, considering that nearly 72% of our population lives there. However, a significant proportion of our 650,000 odd villages does not have a single bank branch to boast of, leaving swathes of the rural population in financial exclusion. RBI has reported that the financial exclusion in India leads to the loss of GDP to the extent of one per cent (RBI, Working Paper Series (DEPR): 8/2011). Financially excluded people, consistently, depend on money lenders even for their day to day needs, borrowing at excessive rates to finally get caught in a debt trap. In addition, people in far-off villages are completely unaware of financial products like insurance, which could protect them in adverse situation. Therefore, financial inclusion is a big necessity for our country as a large chunk of the world's poor resides here. Access to finance by the poor and vulnerable groups is a prerequisite for poverty reduction and social cohesion. Present paper is an attempt to highlight the present efforts of financial inclusion in India its future road map, its challenges etc.


Author(s):  
S. M. Sohrab Uddin ◽  
Mohammad Zoynul Abedin ◽  
Nahid Afroz

Financial Inclusion (FI), a global concern of this decade, has been accepted by development agencies, governments, and policymakers as one of the pre-eminent ways to eradicate worldwide poverty and income inequality. Consequently, authorities are looking for possible ways to include the unbanked in formal financial chain. Islamic finance, specifically Islamic banking, with its welfare-oriented principles and unique products, has been able to capture the attention of policy makers. Moreover, a major portion of the Muslim population still exclude themselves from the formal financial chain due to religious prohibition of interest-based transactions for whom Islamic finance is the only way to inclusion. Bangladesh, one of the major Muslim countries in the world, is still to bring one-fourth of its total population under formal financial chain. At this backdrop, this chapter examines the empirical contribution of Islamic banking sector in financial inclusion condition as well as development scenario of Bangladesh.


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