Poverty Alleviation and Sustainable Development

Salam everyone,

A blessing month of Syawal almost bids farewell to us. In Malaysia it is a month of festival celebration. Sorry folks who are no way found in Malaysia either away for business or study matters, you all sure to miss the eventful moment.

Poverty Alleviation seminar
For me in between open house, on the 14-15th October 2008 I managed to attend Islamic International Seminar on Poverty Alleviation and Sustainable Development at the University of Malaya Centre of Poverty and Development. As usual I talked about Poverty and Empowerment : An Islamic Perspective..I was the first speaker..besides me an Associate Prof from UM and a Prof from UUM. All of us stressed on the importance of solving the issue through various means of government fund, zakat, and waqaf fund.

Another interesting point was raised by JCorp MD Tan Sri Mohd Ali Hashim with "Jihad Ekonomi". JCorp with the conglomerate's assesst exceeds 4 billion, but yet this Tan Sri is still a humble man. His objective in business mission is very clear; that is for "kemesalahatan ummah" not solely for individual pursuit and in contrary to capitalist economy. Capitalist is someone who maximise profit to satisfy his/her own desire which is unlimited in nature. In fact the world economic slowdown and recession is blamed by many espeially Islamic scholars caused by interest based transactions and human greediness. Economy is based on "bubbles" and in actual fact not really based on concrete needs e.g in the US, the lending firms were so laxed in giving out credits even to illegible borrowers. Later the manipulation, affects the credit industry..then the economic meltdown.

Waqaf
The Othman empire in Turkey was said institutionalised the waqaf fund..it survived till today. Another one is the Al-Azhar University which until now the waqaf insitution manages the fund and students of syariah courses are given free tution fees not only for the locals but overseas students as well. Actually JCorp wants to follow suit the noble idea by professionaly managed the waqaf dana and to revive the Islamic concept. It has established Waqaf An-Nur, to provide free healthcare for the needy. I just love the idea, I wish to be part of the Jcorp team.

Polygamy
During the Q & A session after the gender issue papers, the last question was posed by a Nigerian. "This question might be sensitive in Malaysia, but not in Nigeria..I wonder why the paper does not touch the issue of polygamy...da..da" Suddenly a lot of people raised their hands to further clarify or object the ideas..
So the arguments were heated up, with two camps..obviously protecting their rights..At one time I swayed my attention by reading Tan Sri Mohd Ali book's "Jihad Ekonomi". Hi guys I wanted to further explore the issue of poverty and Islamic approaches and not polygamy or monogamy issue (I exclaimed in my heart).

My conclusion
My conscience is straight forward..the syariah view and the rest are issues which sometimes are depending on situational condition....tricky..tricky..man and women..venus and mars..

At the most important thing..Islam provides the solution..

Wassallam
PUZIAH AHMAD