Zakat Collection and Disbursement: The Case of Pakistan.

Zakat is a religious compulsory levy, imposed on the wealth of Muslim adult by the Almighty. It is one of the fundamental pillars of Islam. Furthermore, in the eyes of Shariah, state has the responsibility to collect Zakat and disburse it under the predefined heads, laid down by the Almighty in the Holy Quran. Therefore, following the State’s governance teaching of Islam, many Muslim countries established a centralized Zakat system. Pakistan response to the issue in 1980 and established the institution of Zakat by introducing and implementing Zakat and Ushr Ordinance-1980, in the country. In Pakistan, the institutional and organizational arrangement of Zakat is designed in such a way that it covered a separate, but interlinked, setup on each government level, from federal to local government. In the prevailing study, an attempt has being made to explore the process of Zakat collection and disbursement in Pakistan. The current research, somehow, also threw light on the Zakat regulations and adaptation in the Zakat system of the country. However, the main focused is given to the Zakat collection and disbursement related activities on federal level. In addition to it, the study covered data, ranging from 1980 to 2014, based on the nature of availability. The approach of this study is much align to the principles of case study research that fall under qualitative research discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]