Alhamdulillah, landed at Sfax Airport, Tunisia safely five days ago (on 25th June) at about 10.30 pm. The aim is to participate in the 2nd Sfax International Forum on Islamic Conference, organised by University of Sfax and Tunisian Association of Zakat, with the cooperation of IRTI of the Islamic Development Bank. The theme is Alleviation of Poverty Through Zakat, Waqf and Microfinance.
I presented a paper on Contemporary Vision of Poverty and Islamic Strategies for Poverty Alleviation this morning. It is meant to revisit the understanding of the so-called Islamic concept and strategies of poverty. This need to be emphasized as many talk about Islamic institutions such as zakat and awqaf to alleviate poverty, but leaving the meaning of the poverty undefined. In consequence, we are trying to solve the problems of the western ethno-centric defined poverty, measured by the ethno-centric indicators, using the Islamic institutions like zakat and awqaf. This definitely has to be corrected.
The Forum will end this afternoon. I will fly back to Penang tomorrow morning, again via Paris-Doha and Kuala Lumpur, InshaAllah.
