Utilization of Zakat and Islamic Endowment Funds for Poverty Reduction: A Case Study of Zakat and Hubsi Commission, Kano State-Nigeria.

Abstract

It is generally agreed that poverty, unemployment and economic in equality are the major socioeconomic problems of emerging countries; however, zakat is regarded as an instrument for poverty reduction in most of Muslim societies. The aim of this research is to analyze the role of zakat institution in poverty reduction in the emerging countries with particular reference to the Kano State Zakat and Hubsi Commission. In the process of doing that both primary and secondary data are utilized, primary data were obtained from reports and memos of the commission, while secondary data are data found in the text books and other publications. The study found that zakat plays a vital role in reducing poverty, unemployment and economic inequality in the society. Since the inception of Kano State Zakat and Hubsi Commission huge amounts of money have been spent in form of economic empowerment, medical assistance and so forth. Millions of people have benefited from such assistances. Despite this, the performance of the commission has been below expectation, due to the fact that the total zakat collected by the commission has been below the amount required to eradicate poverty in the state, also the commission heavily relies on grant from the state government. Therefore, introduction sophisticated means of collection zakat, training of zakat personnel, mobilizing members of the public (rich) toward payment of zakat could really help to improve the performance of zakat institution of Kano State, Nigeria.

Keywords: Zakat, endowment funds, poverty, economic inequality.