Empowering Islamic Social Finance to Reduce the Burden of Covid-19 Destitute: Evidence from Malaysia

This study intends to explore the role of Islamic social finance initiatives to support COVID-19 destitute in Malaysia. Like everywhere in the world, COVID-19 has left adverse impacts on businesses and individuals in Malaysia. This study explores the role of zakat, waqf, government policies, fintech, Takaful, Sukuk, micro-financing, and Islamic banking to strengthen the impact of Islamic social finance. This is an explorative study, and data are collected from research articles, online newspapers, websites, and other relevant sources. The study found that various stakeholders in Malaysia, including government, zakat agencies, and non-governmental organizations, made substantial contributions by empowering Islamic social finance to reduce the burden of the current pandemic. Besides, by exploring the sources, the study discovered that Islamic banks played a significant role in supporting COVID-19 destitute through Islamic social finance. The study concludes that various components of Islamic social finance have a great potential to combat any emergency like a pandemic in Malaysia and elsewhere. It recommends Islamic social finance can be further enhanced with the help of diverse applications of fintech, such as blockchain technology, e-wallet, digital platform, and so forth.