Social protection from Islamic and western socioeconomic perspectives: a comparative review

• Main Authors: Muhammad, Amani, Akbar, Mohamed Aslam
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Akademi Zakat, AZKA-PPZ 2022
• Subjects: BPH Islamic Economics; BPH531 Zakat; HV697 Protection, assistance and relief
• Online Access: http://irep.iium.edu.my/101017/13/101017_Social%20protection%20from%20Islamic%20and%20western%20socioeconomic%20perspectives.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/101017/

This paper discusses the topic of social protection in terms of social security and insurance. It is further narrowed into two aspects. The first one is how social protection helps the needy, and the second is how social protection helps economic growth. The paper starts with information on social security and insurance from Islamic and conventional points of view. The differences between these two views are elaborated more in this paper. Furthermore, a list of scholars from the Islamic and the western worlds and their contributions to social security and insurance are highlighted despite their philosophical and geographical differences. The three Islamic scholars are Muhammad Yunus, who came out with microfinance to help the poorest of the poor. Followed by Ungku Abdul Aziz, who brought the establishment of Tabung Haji and lastly, Caliph Umar ibn Abdul Aziz in the past, where during his caliphate, the management of the leading social protection instrument was zakat, which was on top of the extent that there were no poor people who were eligible to receive the funds of zakat. On the other hand, this paper also provides some information on the contributions of conventional scholars to see how these two systems differ from one another and how they can integrate into benefiting each other. The first conventional scholar is Otto Von Bismarck, who introduced the first social insurance and invented a pension fund—followed by Roosevelt, who used his presidential power to enact a law related to social security. Willian Beveridge, a British economist and social reformer is the last one. He was closely associated with the development of state welfare and published a report entitled ‘Social Insurance and Allied Services’ to cure the problem faced by society. Providing all these scholars indicates a need to discuss the integration of contributions to this field that supports social benefit to the needy and helps grow the economy. Further analysis and recommendations are presented regarding this topic in the last section of the paper.