The role of the Malaysia Waqf foundation (Yayasan Wakaf Malaysia) in addressing the challenges posed the covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic poses effects on every country, including Malaysia. The COVID-19 pandemic is wreaking havoc on the world economy, as output and consumption are slashed. Malaysia, like other emerging countries, is not immune to such external shocks and is expected to see a slowdown in economic growth. One of the unique methods for enhancing the local economy is to increase the community’s engagement in financing micro-businesses via cash waqf. However, the development of cash waqf has not been optimal and there is lack of empirical evidence on the intention of public to endow cash waqfin order to support the crisis during COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in the Malaysia context, which warrant further empirical investigations to close the gap. Hence, the purpose of this study is to elucidate the effects of attitude, knowledge, mass media and role of Ar-Ridzuan WaqfCentre on the intentions to endow cash waqf among Muslim teachers in Perak as financial aid in handling the COVID-19 crisis. The quantitative method has been chosen to analyze the intention among teachers in Bagan Serai Perak to endow cash waqf effectively. The Research design is majorly into two comprising exploratory and conclusive design are favorable to give advantages for this study. All collected data is determined by using a questionnaire and analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26.0. Comprises 167 of sampling for respondents in this research. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) was adopted as the underpinning theory in the development of theoretical framework of this study. The findings of this study revealed that attitude, mass media and role of Ar-Ridzuan Waqf Centre have significant influence on the intention to endow cash waqf among Muslim teachers in Perak, with attitude as the most influential variable followed by role of Ar-Ridzuan WaqfCentre and mass media. The independent variables explained 65.2 percent of the variance on intention to endow cash waqf. This study provides new insights in terms of empirical evidence on TPB framework by adding knowledge, mass media and role of Ar-Ridzuan waqfcentre as the new variables. Practically, the research findings could be a beneficial guideline for the cash waqf institutions generally and Ar-Ridzuan waqf centre specifically on the factors that affect the intention to endow cash waqf. These findings lead to the enhancement of cash waqfpromotion, increasing the availability of cash waqfas well as empowerment of cash waqf management. Future research is recommended to consider a longitudinal design for better information enrichment.