islamic economic renaissance 361Zakàh continued to occupy the attention of Muslims for the rest
of the twentieth century until today. Conferences on Zakàh were
held, training sessions were arranged by leading institutions, such as
the Islamic Research and Training Institute (IRTI) of the Islamic
Development Bank (IDB), and governments from the late nineteen
seventies onward became active in enacting Zakàh laws and direc-
tives in introducing Zakàh formally to their financial systems.
The first international Zakàh conference was held in 1984 in Kuwait,
initiated by the Kuwait Zakàh House as already indicated. Two years
later, the second conference was held in 1986 in Riyadh, Saudi
Arabia, sponsored by the Zakàh and Income Tax Department of the
Ministry of Finance and National Economy of Saudi Arabia. As a
follow-up action on the recommendation of the second conference, a
third international conference was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia,
in 1990 sponsored by the Islamic Centre of Malaysia, the Zakàh and
Income Tax Department of Saudi Arabia, the Zakàh House of Kuwait,
the International Sharì"ah Board of Zakàh of Kuwait, and IRTI.
The third conference was particularly pragmatic in its approach
to dealing with Zakàh as it focused on the administrative arrangements
for the implementation of Zakàh in the economies of Muslim states
that wish to, conform to Sharì"ah. Because of the particular significance
of these issues and their implication for the application of Islamic
economics and its development in dealing with complex adminis-
trative problems, the third conference is given due space below.
The third conference had one main focus: the administrative aspects
of Zakàh. From that perspective, the conference aimed to achieve
three main objectives: (a) disseminate information, knowledge and
experience among member countries of the OIC, the Organisation
of Islamic Conference, in connection with the administrative side of
Zakàh, (b) help member countries wishing to introduce Zakàh into
their financial systems to overcome the initial administrative difficulties
of implementation, and (c) further an understanding of the economic
significance of the various institutional frameworks for Zakàh (El-
Ashker and Haq, 1995). Two particular factors could be said to have
contributed to the elimination of Zakàh from government financial
systems in Muslims countries: first, the long-standing absence of
Sharì"ah application from governments’ systems, which became more
pronounced with the military subjugation of the Muslim world to
Western forces, and second, the belief that Islamic systems, economic
and otherwise, should give way to secularized systems if Muslim
countries were to reap the benefits of modernization. Therefore, the