The Vice President, KH Ma'ruf Amin, proposed a National Cash Waqf Movement (GNWT) to expand community participation in raising social funds to support the acceleration of national development and improve community welfare.
"I have spoken with the President and the President agrees that we will carry out the National Cash Waqf Movement. We will launch this later and involve all who claim to be Muslim, from the president, vice president, coordinating minister, ministers to all officials (such as) governors. , regent, "he said, in Jakarta, Thursday.
He stated that when delivering a speech at the commemoration of National Santri Day, which was held by the National Committee for Islamic Economics and Finance (KNEKS) virtually.
Apart from being able to raise social funds, according to him, waqf is also a form of almsgiving, which in Islam the reward is never cut off.
"If people die, their charity breaks, except for three of which are alms that continue to flow. The cleric said it was waqf, because the capital would not be lost," he said.
With this National Movement, he hopes that the cash waqf collected by the Muslim community can be collected and used for development programs and economic recovery, and improving the welfare of the people.
"Waqf will continue to grow, invested into a large community endowment fund. This is in the context of developing community social funds. That is what God willing, we will develop in this effort to develop zakat," he said.
Muslim funds collected through cash waqf will be perpetual, the principal amount cannot be reduced, but the benefits will continue to grow. The management and development of cash waqf require innovation and creativity to generate benefits for the community, he explained.
To realize the GNWT, one effort that can be done now is increasing the literacy of Muslims regarding the importance of waqf.
According to him, the literacy of the Muslim community towards waqf is still lower than zakat.
Referring to several surveys, Muslim literacy towards waqf falls into the low category with an index of 50.48; while the literacy index about zakat has entered the medium category, namely 66.78 percent.
"This is because the public's perception of waqf so far is that it is only land waqf, whereas actually waqf does not have to be in the form of immovable objects, but can also be in the form of money and securities," he said. (Antaranews)