Is Zakah Effective to Alleviate Poverty in a Muslim Society?: A Case of Kwara State, Nigeria

Kwara State is one of the Muslim-dominated states in Nigeria, where Islamic economic instrument of zakah is expected to play vital role in alleviating the problem of poverty in the society. One of the objectives of zakah is to economically circulate the wealth and resources from the rich to the poor and eventually realize fair distribution of those wealth and resources in a Muslim society. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of zakah in the poverty reduction of the poor Muslims in Kwara State, Nigeria, particularly, the poor Muslim women. The study employs mixed method of data collection whereby the primary data are explored using the questionnaire and interview designed for the potential respondents during the ongoing academic research programme 2013/2014 academic session of 360 sample size. Similarly, verses from Holy Qu’ran and Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) are used in the study. For the secondary data, existing literature and studies on zakah are also used. Data gathered are analysed using frequencies, percentages and inferential statistics via SPSS 20.0. The findings show that zakah and its institution are not significantly related to and effective in reducing poverty


Introduction
The purpose and effective cause of zakah and other charitable funds in Islam is to alleviate poverty among the Muslims, so that the latter can be economically self-reliant or self-dependent in the society (Amuda, 2013).Economically and financially, zakah is purposely to redistribute income and wealth from well-to-do Muslims to the less privileged ones in the society in order to enhance the living condition of the poor ones.An individual is categorized as liable to pay zakah (muzakki) if his wealth exceeds the level of nisab defines in terms of gold, silver, livestock, agricultural output and other items that are zakatable.Meanwhile, nisab is defined as a stock, not a flow of wealth, it essentially measures the excess of inflow of wealth (income) over its outflow (expenditure) that is sustained for one year (Obaidullah, 2012).Zakah funds must be an integral part of any poverty alleviation initiative due to the following two reasons.First, the zakah money is meant to provide for the immediate basic consumption needs of the poor, such as food, clothing and accommodation.Second,it is to transform zakah recipients to become economically active and productive agents, so that they are able to generate their own income and become zakah payers (muzakki) as opposed to zakah receivers (mustahiq) in the society (Obaidullah, 2012).
Zakah is third pillar of Islam after belief in Allah and His Prophet as well as five daily prayers.This is to show the significance of zakah obligation in the Muslim society.It is evident in the Holy Quran, the words of Allah (s.w.t) that "Lo! those who believe and do good deeds and establish prayer and pay the zakah, their reward is with their Lord."(Al-Quran 2:277).A person who performs and fulfils this act of Ibadah amount to the fulfilment of both rights of Allah and mankind (Deuraseh, 2009:92), as zakah is the essence of the rights of the needy and poor in line with the words of Allah (s.w.t) that: "And in their possessions is a share for the beggar and the deprived." .
Zakah in Islam is to be distributed among eight categories of people.These are those that are being recommended as bona fide and eligible recipients or beneficiaries of zakat in Islam and categorically mentioned in the Quran (9:60).
"As-Sadaqat (here it means Zakat) are only for the Fuqara' (poor), and Al-Masakin (the poor) and those employed to collect (the funds), and to attract the hearts of those who have been inclined (towards Islam), and to free the captives, and for those in debt, and for Allah's cause (i.e. for Mujahidun-those fighting in a holy battle), and for the wayfarer (a traveller who is cut off from everything); a duty imposed by Allah.And Allah is All-Knower, All-Wise."(AL-Quran 9:60).
These groups are enumerated below: 1) The Destitute -those who do not have material possessions or means of livelihood. 2) The Poor -comprises those with inadequate means of livelihood to meet their basic necessities to survive. 3) The Debtors -those who are unable to settle their debts.

4)
The Travelers -the wayfarers who do not have enough money to complete their journey, that is, stranded travellers.

5)
The Slaves -slaves: zakat money is to be used to purchase captives and free them.

6)
The Converts -those who newly joined Islam and require help to integrate themselves into the Muslim community.

7)
In the Cause of Allah -anyone who works in the Path of Allah (s.w.t), zakat money can also be spent in this way.

8)
Zakah Collectors -zakat workers are those whose job is to collect and re-distribute zakah money.Therefore, they can also get their salary from the zakah money.

Definitionsof Zakah and Poverty
Zakah is an Islamic economic tool to eradicate poverty and deprivation in a Muslim community.This is a process of transferring money/fund from the more-to-do Muslim individuals to the less-to-do ones, in other words, it is an Islamic obligation of transferring part of wealth or richness, from the economically strong and rich Muslim individuals to the economically weak and poor Muslim individuals, in order to enhance the living standard and equally alleviate poverty of the latter.Amuda (2013) defines zakah as "an obligatory duty on financially secure Muslims to donate or pay a specific percentage of his or her wealth to the poor in a society".Qardawi (1986) sees the word zakahas growth, cleanness and purity in Arabic word (cited in Ahmad Fahme et al., 2013).
According to Imam Al-Ghazali, poverty is being defined as a situation or condition of someone who does not possess both the material wealth and who also does not have strong relationship with Allah (s.w.t) and as a slave to the Al-Mighty Allah.This is called fakir-mutlak or simply absolute poverty (Puziah et al., 2008 cited in Ansari andNair, 2008:137-138).Animashaun(2010) views poverty as lack of access to both visible and invisible items which can improve the level of welfare such as shelter, drinkable water, food, security, education, health care and other services.

Nexus of Zakah and Poverty Alleviation
It has been argued that zakah can assist a country to alleviate poverty as well as enhance the standard of living of the poor and the needy.Zakah has been described as an instrument of poverty alleviation and this is proven true as it is properly managed and efficiently distributed among the poor and the needy.It is further argued that zakah is used to generate income and make the recipients become more economically self-reliant (cited in Anita et al., 2011).The finding of the study carried out by Ahmad Fahme et al. (2013) in Kelantan, Malaysia, shows that zakah positively contributes to alleviate poverty among the poor and the needy in Kelantan.
According to Obaidullah (2012), zakah is a powerful instrument of poverty reduction in Islam and truly the early history of Islamic societies show the possibility of broad alleviation of poverty with the use of zakah.The sunnah of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) has clearly mentioned that "Indeed Allah (s.w.t) has made zakah obligation on the wealthy Muslims that can alleviate poverty.It is not possible for the poor to suffer hunger or lack of clothes unless it is caused by tight-fisted wealthy Muslims …" (cited in Obaidullah, 2012).Therefore, it can be deduced from this sunnah that with proper distribution of zakah, the problem of poverty can become history in a Muslim society.Similarly, the more the availability and well distribution of zakah is, the lesser the level and incidence of poverty among the Muslims.Bello (2009) and Akgunduz (n.d.) argue that zakah and waqf are both necessary tools in Muslim society or country to ensure socioeconomic balance and to resolve the problem of social chaos.They further stress that poverty and related socioeconomic problems facing a given society, especially the Muslim society, can only be eliminated through the adoption of Qur'an injunctions that are related to giving zakat, social assistance and mutual help, almsgiving, observing due daily prayers, abstaining from usury and interest.With proper implementation of most of the these teachings of Islam, it is believed that poverty problem in particular and the socioeconomic problems in general, would be alleviated in Muslim societies or countries.

Research Question
Is there a significant relationship between the amount of zakah money received and the level of poverty reduction among the poor Muslim women in Kwara State, Nigeria?

Research Hypothesis
There is a significant relationship between the amount of zakah money received and the level of poverty reduction among the poor Muslim women in Kwara State, Nigeria.For this paper, both questionnaire and interview are used to collect data from the respondents.Three hundred and sixty (360) respondents are selected, of which 200 of them are the women participants in the State anti-poverty programme under Women Empowerment Strategy (WES) programme and the remaining 160 respondents are from outside the programme.The method of selection is stratified sampling technique whereby all the three senatorial constituencies in the State are reflected in choosing the respondents that is, total number of 140 respondents chosen from Kwara Central and 110 respondents each from Kwara North and Kwara South.This is a technique in which the population is divided into strata or sub-population after which samples are chosen randomly and independently from one another.Both questionnaire and interview are incorporated in the method of data collection of the main study.Therefore, the data generated from the study are analysed using frequency tables and percentages, and Pearson Correlation Coefficient (r) is used to respond to the research question and the hypothesis raisedearlier in the study using SPSS version 20.0 for analysis of the data.

Results and Discussion
This section primarily analysed the extent of the role of zakah in alleviating economic difficulty of the women in Kwara State, Nigeria.More so, various sources of zakah are also examined.Muslim scholars agree to make sufficient procurement for the al-masakin and al-fuqara or poor and needy via zakah money in a given society.Imam Abu Hanifah suggests the amount of zakah money given to the poor must bring the finance of the poor to the minimum taxable income.Both Imam Maliki and Hambali agree that the provision must be enough to provide for their needs for a year while Imam al-Shafi'i stresses that the amount of zakah money given to them must be sufficient to cover their needs for their entirelife.Unanimously, all the Muslim scholars concord that the amount of zakah money given to the poor must adequately cover both their basic needs and the means to guarantee them to employment opportunity (Uthman&Adesina-Uthman, 2012:243).(Bello, 2009).
In the Kwaran society, the findings reveal that there is no basis or yardstick used for the distribution of zakah, in this respect, zakah money by private individual or any Imam is inappropriately distributed to the recipients.
There is no other measure or criterion employed to justify what they allocate to an individual poor or needy in the society, since there is no record or personal information/data of the poor.The individual rich men, Imam and Islamic charity group distributing this little zakah money they collected or brought to them do not have much information about the recipients in terms of the latter size of household and level of their monthly income.Thus, this is simply an arbitrary distribution or allocation of zakah in the society.At this juncture, more awareness and orientation on how and when it is due to give out zakah are needed to be spread in the society.This is necessary as some wealthy people are not rich in the knowledge and teachings of Islam to know appropriate channel to give out or deliver their zakah money, goods, animals, farm products and properties, although, they cannot be totally blamed as the institution of zakah is non-existence or non-entity in the State.
From Table 2, the relationship between poverty alleviation scale and zakah money scale was investigated using Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient.Preliminary analyses were performed to ensure no violation of the assumptions of normality, linearity and homoscedasticity.There was a weak, positive correlation between the two variables, r= .06,n= 360, p (.276) 0.05, with low levels of total zakah money associated with lower levels of total poverty alleviation.From the correlation output, Pearson correlation is .058,which indicates 0.34 (.058 X .058=.003364)per cent shared variance when squared.Zakah assists to explain less than 1 per cent of the variance in respondents' scores on the poverty alleviation scale.However, direction of relationship or impact is positive with small strength and statistically insignificant.
Therefore, it can be concluded that there is insignificant contribution or impact of zakah on poverty alleviation of the women inKwara State, Nigeria.Also, the response to the research question raised earlier is that "is there a significant relationship between the amount of zakah money received and the level of poverty reduction among the poor Muslim women in Kwara State, Nigeria?" is hereby "negative" and the research hypothesis that states thus, "there is a significant relationship between the amount of zakah money received and the level of poverty reduction among the poor Muslim women in Kwara State, Nigeria", cannot be accepted.Clearly, the hypothesis can be rejected, as zakah does not make any meaningful contribution to the lives of women in Kwara State, Nigeria.This is partly due to the ineffectiveness of the institution of zakah in the society.This equally means from the findings that Muslims in general and Muslim women in particular, hardly perceived that zakah is doing anything to better off and enhance their general living standard or poverty reduction, despite the fact that Kwara State is one of the predominantly Muslim states in Nigeria.
More so, it is attributed to the failure of Kwara State in Nigeria to see zakah collection to be well administered (Amuda, 2013).This happened as there is no standard institution to coordinate zakah money (both zakah collection and distribution) in Kwara State and zakah collection is mainly done by individual Muslim scholars (Table 1).Without proper channel, recording, planning and not including it as part of astrategy, it would be difficult to see the contribution or impact of zakah in poverty alleviation (Nasim Shah, 2014).However, in Egypt, Abdelbaki (2014) finds out that the potential zakah collection in Egypt cannot alone eradicate poverty from the Egyptian economy unless other charitable tools play important role to eradicate poverty in the country, as this is shown in the estimation of effect of zakah on aggregate consumption of the country's economy.However, Hossain (2012) has observed that zakah instrument is a strong weapon to fight poverty in Islamic countries.
During the interview session, the respondents were asked ifzakah played or contributed to their living condition.Most of them heard and knew the existence of zakah as ibadah for every Muslim in a society, but hardly received it and not feeling its impact on their living standard.According to one woman, "I can say that I received zakah money occasionally, maybe more than one year interval but the money is insignificant to have any impact on my living condition" (R3  Wamakko and Maitafsir (2008).This can be incorporated in the State poverty alleviation policy.In the long run, this type of institution can serve the entire people (irrespective of their religions) of the State, either directly or indirectly.
This paper has been aforementioned that is largely based on the findings of on-going academic research work.The area of study is Kwara State, which was created on 27 th May 1967.Kwara State is chosen by virtue of having large number of Muslims as inhabitants in the society.More so, majority of Muslims particularly, the women are poor in the State and the issue of zakah and institution of zakah are not performing the expected role in reducing poverty among the poor Muslims in the State.Kwara State is one of the oldest states in Nigeria and the motto of the State is known as the "State of Harmony" on the account of the peaceful co-existence among its multi-cultural, religious and diverse population of 2.4 million people according to the last population census in 2006 (National Population Commission, NPC, 2006), although the current population of the State is more than this figure.Kwara State has 16

Table 1 :
Distribution Based on Zakah Money Received, Source of Zakah and How Regular they Receive Zakah myThis journal is a member of and subscribes to the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)Sources of Zakah:

Table 2 :
Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient (r) Between Variables of Zakah Money and Poverty Alleviation in Kwara State, This journal is a member of and subscribes to the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) It is apparent that majority of Muslim women that are living in poverty are not able to access in order to benefit from the zakah money as the institution of zakah is not effective in the State.The findings show weak and insignificant correlation between zakah money and poverty reduction among the poor Muslim women in Kwara State.The issue of zakah collection and distribution needs dire attention from the authority in Kwara State.There is no peculiar and standard institution responsible for the collection and management of zakah.Hence, this hasresulted in poor collection and distribution, and eventually low impact of zakah money on the poor and needy Muslims in the society.At this juncture, Kwara State needs to re-establish, re-structure and re-organize the fragile and unstructured institution of zakah, mostly under the siege of the private individuals and organizations.The institution of zakah has to remain viable as an Islamic economic instrument and safety-net for the Muslims in all spheres of life.Based on the findings of this paper, the following policy recommendations can be adopted in the State to improve the contribution, collection and distribution of zakah and alleviate poverty among the poor Muslim women: Kwara State government should formally support and standardize the management of zakah and waqfcollection among Kwaran Muslims which are the sources of alleviating poverty in Islam.This would be a source of help to the government of the day to achieve her goal of poverty eradication in the State and fellow poor States in the country, reduce government outlay on poverty and attain faster economic growth and development in the country(Abdussalam et al., 2013).Both State government and Local Government Areas (LGAs) should initiate contribution towards the institution of zakah prior to approaching an individuals or private companies for the collection.Kwara State can even emulate Sokoto State in Nigeria in terms of the establishment of zakah and waqf fund, according to ).Another interviewee said, "I never received any zakah in my life, I can only hear of it in the discussion over the radio or when Imam is giving sermon in the mosque near my house" (R5).Another woman said, "I