Towards A Unified Zakat System

Traditionally, Zakat was paid to the state at the time ofthe Prophet (pbuh). It is not easy, however, to reverse aculture that has been formed over centuries and one has tobe practical in suggesting solutions to this problem.It should be clear that not accounting for 40 percent ofZakat payers may well lead to the misallocation of Zakatfunds. So, the aim is to encourage these pessimistic payersto rely more on official Zakat institutions. One way ofdoing that is to offer them a percentage of the Zakat moneyto pay personally (as suggested earlier) while, at the sametime, imposing penalties for Zakat evasion. In addition,the government should carry out an awareness programme inwhich the Department of Zakat is explained and in which theimportance of paying Zakat to central authorities isunderlined.Another important aspect is transparency. Indeed, in orderto improve the trust of Zakat payers, Zakat institutionsshould publish a detailed report providing relevantinformation such as the amount of Zakat collected and therecipients of the distributed funds. Because of the concernexpressed, such reports should include tangible informationwhich could be understood by the average Zakat payer. For285