Chapter 6 Internationalization of Zakat to Serve Humanity in the Midst of COVID-19: Using International Organizations as Intermediaries of Zakat

Zakat is an effective Islamic social financial tool that could be used to eliminate global poverty. The pandemic has turned back the world's poverty clock and as such, more work is required to bring equitable and shared prosperity to the world. International organizations that serve humanity could be used as intermediaries of zakat to reach out to those categories of legal recipients of zakat who are most deserved of such assistance, but who are unidentified and unreachable by the zakat organizations. This is with the ultimate objective of enhancing the effectivity of zakat as a social finance tool. However, using international organizations as zakat intermediaries is not a straightforward issue and limited literature are available on the matter to understand the contemporary practice and challenges in this regard. As such, using a qualitative research approach, this chapter sheds light on the issues revolving around the internationalization of zakat by looking at the existing practice of it by identifying the challenges in doing so. This chapter proposes a way to resolve the existing issues in internationalization of zakat by leveraging on blockchain technology where a proposition is made to introduce a crypto zakat platform. This chapter also reveals that in contemporary times, there are three ways in which international organizations have been involved as zakat intermediaries: by creating a zakat fund for specific purpose; by receiving zakat money to be distributed to transform the societies in countries other than where the zakat was collected; and by creating partnership with zakat organizations to use zakat money in the respective country in which zakat was collected. It is anticipated that soon the stakeholders of zakat would join hands with international organizations to effectively manage zakat to alleviate poverty in the world exacerbated by the ongoing pandemic.