Indias Ministry of Minority Affairs has enlisted a Kuala Lumpur-based body to help develop Islamic endowments, or awqaf, aiming to mobilise a large pool of assets in a country that is home to one of the biggest Muslim populations in the world. The World Islamic Economic Forum Foundation, which organises conferences and workshops on Muslim business around the world, will hold a roundtable later this year to discuss ways to improve management of Indias estimated 490,000 waqf properties. India, with an estimated 177 million Muslims, has a large base of awqaf but many of their assets are far from being employed efficiently; their estimated annual income is just 1.63 billion rupees ($26.3 million). Last month, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh inaugurated the National Wakaf Development Corporation, which the Ministry of Minority Affairs established to help management of the properties become more transparent. Efforts to strengthen Indias awqaf could conceivably be a precursor to developing an Islamic banking sector in the country; its secular laws still largely forbid the selling of sharia-compliant banking.
Posted on: Fri, 28 Feb 2014 17:53:28 +0000
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