Zakah index: Islamic economics' welfare measurement

Zakah is one of the five pillars of Islam. Compared to the other pillars, Zakah intersects with most the human dimensions: spiritual, individual, social, economic, and is quantifiable. Zakah also fulfills all of the aspect of the Maqāsid al-Sharī'ah that preserves public interests (maslahah). This paper argues that the lack of full observance of the objectives of the obligation in performing Zakah, which is intended to increase the welfare/wellbeing of the society, makes Islamic Economics as a discipline completely ineffective and inefficient in performing its essential characteristics in fulfilling the Maqāsid al-Sharī'ah. The expected outcome of this study is Zakah Index that will represents the monitoring of Zakah payment in Islamic or Muslim populated country, hence providing academics, students, society, and policy maker in Islamic or Muslim populated country an alternative measurement of economic progress, instead of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The method used in the conceptualization of the Index and its derivatives are content analysis and inductive method, which is exploratory in nature, that covers Islamic and conventional literature. Finally, Zakah Index is intended to be as an Islamic Economics tool to measure not only the welfare/wellbeing of Islamic Society, but also its religious (spiritual). On the last part of the paper, the Zakah Index Model then is applied to the East Java province.