POTENSI DAN CABARAN TERHADAP PERLUASAN SUMBER ZAKAT SEKTOR PERTANIAN DI MALAYSIA

Abstract

Since the early Islamic period zakat on agriculture sectors were being collected limited
only on primary traditional sources such as paddy, wheat, camel, cow and goat. However in the
modern time today agriculture sector has been commercialized. Farmers regardless of their
activities, were capable of yielding good returns probably higher than the traditional sourc es of
zakat. The question is, are these farmers not obliged to pay zakat and what is the possibility of
widening zakat base on agriculture sector. In this regards this study attempts to examine the
possibilities of widening agriculture zakat base, and then evaluating people perception and
analyzing the challenges. This study utilizes primary data for Malaysia and uses descriptive
analysis and logit model in analyzing the data. The results show that based on income criteria
there are possibilities to extend agriculture zakat base and this step is expected to received good
response from the society. However there are challenges to be faced such as identifying the
illah for zakat on uncensunsus wealth and determining the procedure for calculating zakat on
agriculture sector since different types of plants possess different characteristics. Policy
implication that can be deduced from this study is that in order to hinder any difficulties there is
a need for the government to establishing a separate law for zakat on agriculture sector.