About mac zakat
As the young Muslim community was starting to plant its roots in the fertile land of North America, they imagined Zakat as an important pillar for community development. They advocated for the institutionalization of Zakat to complement other organizational efforts. Zakat was seen as a way to reinvigorate Islamic observance, build communal connections across local communities, and showcase American Muslims’ attempts to alleviate pressing social problems.
However, Islamic philanthropy developed along different tracks. Zakat played a key role in community mobilization to address unmet needs. But Zakat never became a national institution structured to fulfill its divine mandate.
In Canada, over the past 25 years, MAC has become an anchor as the largest Muslim organization in the country with a national reach and a strong presence in local communities. Today, as we embark on shaping the next 25 years of the Canadian Muslim community, we are putting the foundation to put the old dream in motion and provide a powerful way to live and love Islam in North America…
The Zakat House of Canada or (بيت الزكاة الكندي) is a National Institution envisioned to revive the role of Zakat as it has been throughout the Islamic history, a lever to uplift communities and provide a pathway for creating Sustainable Livelihoods.
It will be a platform that provides an integrated solutions to address complex social challenges from fighting poverty, to increasing accessibility to education and justice, and to facilitating economic mobility..
As our story unfold, we hope to see the day when the Zakat House of Canada becomes a Catalyst for empowering our Communities;
In order to untapping the full potential of Zakat, it is deemed that there needs to be a new working model to address the systemic barriers and operational challenges that had been the reason for the current status quo.
A national institution with national reach and a strong presence in local communities is key. Increasing the pool of funds will enable the increase of investment to alleviate immediate needs as well as address root causes of key social problems.
So our model is based on three pillars:
- National agenda with clear priorities and measurable outcomes.
- Strategy to address some of the roots of the problem. For example, instead of only providing resources to meet the emergency-based demands, the aim is to address the question about the inability of people to actively participate in economic activities. So the poverty question can be addressed by creating sustainable solutions to empower the poor to be able to get out of the vicious cycle of poverty.
- Provide adequate resources to implement the strategy.
Yusuf al-Qaradhawi (2000) noted that the role of zakat is not only limited to poverty alleviation by fulfilling only the urgent needs, but also to mitigate the problem as a whole which causes the poverty.
Zakat is conceived as a wealth equalizer. It promotes economic activities as opposed to wealth accumulation, and reduces the economic inequality and social gaps by constantly redistributing wealth to reduce economic and social gaps within society. So it is beyond just meeting the minimum sustenance levels but aims to moving people from Zakat payees to payers.
At Zakat House, we will be focusing on 4 key priorities for the next 5 years (until 2030):
- Alleviating Poverty and elevating Economic mobility
- Investing in Access to Education
- Improving Access to justice
- Fighting Discrimination and Islamophobia
Our strategy to address these priorities revolve around 3 tracks:
Increase the collection by investing in education and training programs. A Zakat-payer focused integrated solution is designed as part of a robust platform that can provide Zakat services which range from:
- Education Program about Fiqh Zakat.
- Tools to facilitate payment of Zakat including calculation and collection.
- Provide customized consultation to specific cases.
- Develop tools to measuring impact of Zakat
The second is track is to provide a host of programs that support the emergency and immediate needs as well as invest in mid- and long-term solutions. Those can range in scope from providing immediate emergency support, to short-term relief, and to longer-term sustainable intervention and system changes.
Third track is to work closely with our partners to ensure quick delivery of programs and increase the reach to new constituencies.
