Assalamualaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.
 

In the name of Allah, the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful. All praises is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds - The Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful, Sovereign of the Day of Recompose. It is You we worship and You we ask for help. Guide us to the straight path - the path of those upon whom You have bestowed favor, not of those who have evoked (Your) anger or of those who are astray. Ameen.

In the previous writing, we have looked at the development of Waqaf since the time of Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. till our current time. We witnessed how Waqaf played a vital role in the history of Islamic civilization and it developed rapidly during the Islamic reign.

I promised, in the previous writing, that we will look into how different countries manage and deal with their Waqaf system in order to help their respective Muslim community. Hence, today we will first look into Malaysia, our neighbour next door.

Malaysia, with majority of its population is Muslim, is very serious in developing the Waqaf system. Waqaf as part of charity have been in Malaysia for centuries. Waqaf contribute significantly to the development of religious sectors, such as mosques, cemeteries, and orphanages. The waqaf practice in Malaysia follows the rules and regulations within the states. This practice has been specified in the Malaysian Constitution, which explains that any issues related to Islamic Laws (including Waqaf) are regulated by the enactment of the state. Each state may have different approaches to dealing with Waqaf, but the basic characteristics of Waqaf remain the same in all jurisdictions within states.

Here we see how Malaysia gives each state to manage their own Waqaf system with the basics remain standardize.

As a federation country, Malaysia has 13 states and three federal territories, namely, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya in west Malaysia and Labuan in east Malaysia. Each state has a State Religious Council or Majelis Agama Islam Negeri (MAIN), which takes care of issues related to religion, including zakat and Waqaf (Ramli and Jalil, 2014). MAIN plays the role of sole trustee (nazhir) of Waqaf. In other words, people who want to register their land as a Waqaf must approach MAIN. No other institution is allowed to receive Waqaf other than MAIN—also implying that Waqaf are centralized within their respective states.

Here we see how Malaysia ensure that Waqaf is not wrongly channeled to unathorised authority by establishing one main authorized institution.

To ensure good management of Waqaf in all states and given that significant waqaf asset potential exists that can be optimized for socioeconomic development in Malaysia, the federal government has established two agencies—Perbadanan Waqaf, Zakat and Haji (JAWHAR) and Yayasan Waqaf Malaysia (YWM). These federal agencies aim to create effective and efficient waqaf management throughout the country to ensure that the Malaysian people receive benefits. In doing so, these agencies have created a waqaf development plan as part of the 9th and 10th Malaysian Plan. Moreover, the government gave these agencies full authority to develop waqaf assets in cooperation with all of the MAIN throughout Malaysia. The planning included, for example, developing a boarding house for the orphanage in the state of Kedah (for social) and a waqf-based hotel in the state of Negeri Sembilan for commercial purposes.

Thus, we can summarize that in Malaysia there exist two levels in managing the Waqaf system. That is the state level where freedom of management is given and the federal level it oversees the work down by the states.