The Biggest Threat to Waqf
Sometimes, you overhear some of the most
surprising and fascinating conversations when you are at the bus stop. For
example, I once overheard a conversation about how the cost of land is
increasing thus, affecting many hard workers such as farmers. It was an
interesting topic, but I must say I was not expecting one of them to say,
“maybe they should just get Waqf land, it solves all the problems”. Silently, I
agreed. But I was a bit taken back with the response to said statement. “True,
but do you think the owners of these Waqf land wants to just give it away? They
just keep the land so that they can one day sell it at a higher price. They
don’t care if it stays idle without benefitting anyone.” Strangely, the other
person agreed to this statement. This conversation made me ponder; do they
think a land once registered as a Waqf is still ‘owned’ by someone? Is it
possible that majority of people do not know how ownership of Waqf land works?
Maybe they know the basic of Waqf lands, but how much do they know about how
Waqf is established, how it garners benefits and how it is managed? I raised
this question to some of my colleagues who were not as well versed in Waqf and
their response was similar; “The people who manages the Waqf land aren’t the
owners of the land? Who does own the land then?” So, maybe people do lack
awareness in this area.
First things first; once a land or
property is created and registered as a Waqf,
it belongs to Allah (SWT). It cannot be sold, given as a gift or inherited. In
layman’s terms, the process of creating a Waqf is where the Founder (Waqif)
gives the land or property as Waqf, assigns a Trustee (Mutawalli) to manage and
derive benefits from the land or property after which distributes to the
beneficiaries identified by the Founder. At many times, the Trustee of the Waqf
land or property are seen as the owners of said properties. However, they do
not have any rights over the Waqf property and are only responsible for the
efficient management and maintenance of the Waqf properties.
Over the years, there has been lack of
finance, expertise and efficient management of Waqf properties across all
Muslim nations. This leads to hindering the maximization of returns that can be
gained from the use of the Waqf land, thus affecting the rewards the Waqf land
can generate for both the Founder and the beneficiaries. Poor corporate
governance and Waqf asset management practices has led to there being many
undeveloped Waqf lands around the world equating to USD
1 trillion. This once again leads to many people
questioning those owning the land; how is it that they are not responsible for
Waqf lands sitting idle everywhere? As mentioned before, the ones responsible
for this are not the owners who have given up their ownership on the land, but
the trustees assigned to manage them.
The world is changing, and it is changing fast.
Technology is taking over almost every industry, and the Awqaf industry should not be left
behind. With the public’s perception on Waqf and their trustees low, the
question arises whether new innovations such as WAQF Chain platform could
provide the public with a ray of hope in the revival of Waqf around the world. With
Finterra adopting the newest technology that attracts all genres of users, and
with this thought leader being up for the challenge, the future of Waqf
development definitely looks encouraging.
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