Historically speaking, the institution of waqf, a redistribution institution and a non-profit institution, played a remarkable role in developing the Islamic societies as well as in assisting the Islamic State in providing all the essential services as it; supported the health and the educational sectors, supplied the basic infrastructures, provided jobs, enhanced the commercial business activities, provided food for the hunger, sheltered the poor and the needy, besides supporting the agricultural and industrial sectors, without any cost to government. However, this role had been deteriorated since the end of the 19th century up to the present time as the governments in the different Muslim countries gave the right to themselves to centralize its administration and to confiscate and abolish family waqf. By doing so, the government hopped that they will solve all the problems which had occurred to the waqf properties during that time. However, they fail to realize that they are destroying its remarkable role, which it had played throughout the past centuries.

From a mere glance at Muslim countries today, we realize that they are classified as third world countries even though they are adopting a secular system. The recent statistical data of 2009 shows that the majority of people who live below poverty are found in Muslim countries such as; Afghanistan 53%, Eritrea 50%, Yemen 45%, Bangladesh 45%, Sudan 40%, Pakistan 24%, Algeria 23%, Egypt 20%, Turkey 20%, and Indonesia 18%. Some scholars related this fact to the oppression, humiliation and the bad policies which had been imposed to almost all Muslim countries during colonization and which continued up to the present time. Others related this to the incompetence and the corruption on the part of their governments. We cannot deny the above mentioned reasons as the catalyst for the spread of poverty in the Islamic world and the recent uprisings.

The practice of Islamic banking has become a fast growing and widespread phenomenon, not only in the Muslim countries, but also in non-Muslim countries as well, such as the UK, US, Switzerland, and Singapore. The transformation from a conventional form of banking to a banking system based on interest-free finance has generated a great deal of interest in terms of calling for human capital development in the field to ensure sustainability and good performance in the Islamic financial industry. With its announcement as a leading international and regional hub for Islamic finance, Malaysia has become one of the Muslim countries which had placed strong focus on human capital development in Islamic Finance by developing many training and educational centers, such as the Securities Industry Development Corporation (SIDC); the Islamic Banking & Finance Institute Malaysia (IBFIM); the International Centre for Leadership in Finance (ICLIF); the International Centre for Education in Islamic Finance (INCEIF) and the International Shari'ah Research Academy for Islamic Finance (ISRA). The main objective of this paper is to provide a tracer study of INCEIF-CIFP first graduates and to determine their employability in the field of Islamic finance, locally and internationally

Historically, the non-profit institution of waqf has played a remarkable role in developing the Islamic societies as well as in assisting the Islamic state in providing social welfare services in the health and educational sectors, supplying the basic infrastructure, providing jobs, enhancing commercial and business activities, providing food for the hungry, shelter for the poor and the needy, in addition to supporting the agricultural and industrial sectors, without incurring any cost to the government. However, this positive role played by waqf deteriorated since the end of the 19th century and has continued to deteriorate to the present time.

This paper aims to explore the process of digitalization of the financial services provided by Malaysian banks and FinTech companies and to address the issues and challenges they face. Both secondary and primary sources are used in this study, where the latter represented by questionnaires and in-depth interviews with the banking and FinTech practitioners. The qualitative aspects of the Analytical Network Process method are used to identify and analyze economic, regulatory, and operational issues faced by banks and FinTech institutions in the process of digitalizing financial services. The findings provide useful insights on whether the policies set by Bank Negara of Malaysia either accelerate or hinder the growth of Malaysia's digital finance sector. The challenges faced by banks and FinTech companies, while digitalizing their financial services, are quite similar. They include the concerns of cyber security, lack of customer readiness in utilizing the financial services, particularly in rural areas, and the need for financial authorities to maintain stronger consumer and investor protection due to high pace of evolution of financial technology. It was also noted that customers have evolving expectations towards digital financial services, because they want seamless digital banking solutions to meet their daily needs. Previous studies had their focus on the benefits and impact of digital finance on financial inclusion as well as financial innovation. This research takes a different approach as it reflects on the impact of digitalization of financial services provided by banks and FinTechs through the prism of customer perspective.

The failure of interest based programmes, such as micro-finance and anti-poverty programmes, in assisting the destitute, eradicating poverty and reducing income inequality encouraged the authors to study in depth the alternative financial institutions to interest/riba that can solve such problems rather than harming individuals, communities, societies and countries. This raises the question of whether the different Islamic financial institutions can eradicate poverty, reduce inequalities and provide microfinance with zero-interest. The answer to this will be presented throughout this paper.

Purpose - The main objective of this research is to present the current successful cases in making a revolution reform of the old and idle waqf properties into income generating properties in Muslim and Muslim minority countries. These reforms include providing services to the community, opening jobs for the majority of people, funding small entrepreneurs, educating the mass, taking care of the health of the people, and sheltering the poor and needy in the different countries. Cases under studies are; Turkey, Malaysia, Singapore, Sudan, Indonesia, New Zealand, Kuwait, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh...

The institution of waqf, or an Islamic foundation, has played a significant role throughout Islamic history, from the time of the Prophet (pbuh) to the present time. Although this institution existed before the coming of Islam, Islam was the first religion to develop its legal system and to regulate it. It became the main device created by Muslims to facilitate most social services such as education, health care, national security, transportation facilities, basic infrastructure, etc., without any cost to the government. Recently, the creation of new waqf has concentrated mainly on movable waqf, i.e., cash waqf.

This paper highlights the practice of waqf-shares in five Muslim and Muslim minority countries for the last two decades. With the urge needs for capital to re-develop the old waqf properties in the different countries it is much recommended to introduce the concept of waqf-share as fund raising to improve and to upgrade the current situation of these properties so that they can deliver the suspected services needed in the different societies. Besides, proposing this type of waqf-share will motivate founders from all categories of people to contribute directly in re-developing the old waqf properties with the least amount of money they can afford to give and seeking the compound rewards in the hereafter. To achieve this, an overview on waqf-share and its current application in five countries are highlighted; the structure of waqf-share and its modus operandi are provided as a guideline for its creation and management, this is followed by the conclusion.

The beginning of the 1980's witness a new approach of collecting zakah on monthly bases in some of the Muslim countries such as Sudan, Pakistan and Malaysia. At first, this creates an ambiguous situation amongst Muslim scholars as to its legitimacy, since the payment of zakah is known to be given on annual bases and once it reaches the nisab (the minimum assigned). Recently, a consensus has been given amongst contemporary Muslim scholars that it is lawful to pay the zakah on monthly basis. Malaysia is one of the countries that start implementing zakah deduction on monthly basis through participating in a scheme called the Salary Deduction Scheme. This raises the question on some of the conventional created funds, such as the Employees Provident Fund (EPF), and whether zakah is applicable on them or not. The main objective of this paper is to study the Shariah aspect not only on the validity of the payment of zakah on monthly salaries in Malaysia but the validity of the payment of zakah on other funds such as the EP.

The recent statistical data on poverty shows that most of the people who live below the poverty line are found in Muslim countries. For example, the total population who are living below poverty line in Algeria is 25%, in Egypt 25.2%, in Bangladesh 26%, in Syria 35.2%, in Afghanistan 35.8%, in Pakistan 36.3%, in Nigeria 46%, in Sudan 46.5%, in Chad 46.7%, in Senegal 46.7%, in Yemen 54% and in Somalia 73%. Some scholars relate this poverty to the oppression, humiliation and bad policies which had been imposed in almost all Muslim countries during colonization and have continued up to the present time. Others relate this to the incompetence and the corruption on the part of their governments which led to the last Arab spring and what followed. We cannot deny the above-mentioned reasons as the catalyst for the spread of poverty in the Islamic world.