[Preamble]    [Goals and Objectives of Zakat ]   [Zakat in Sokoto and Borno ]    [British Colonialism ]   [Zakat in the Colonial Period ]  [Zakat in the Post Colonial Period ]   [Future, Challenges and Conclusion ]   [References ]  The Fate of Zakat in the Post-colonial Period Under such circumstances one can imagine what the fate of Zakat would be. There may have been no particular law which made Zakat illegal, but there was perhaps no need for one, since enough measures had been taken to preclude even the thoughts of it. Even when poverty and destitution grew to levels previously inconceivable, problems which the Zakat has been specifically designed to solve, one state government after another went about groping for solutions. Even in overwhelmingly Muslim states, like Kano, where the bureaucrats and the society are Muslims, no one had the courage (or is it the audacity) to propose Zakat as the solution and to proceed to organise its collection and distribution. These experts many of them academicians from our universities were groping for solutions and true to their training they propped up the familiar Western solution. Some of them, one would like to think, as Muslims believe that such Islamic solutions as the Zakat may be most appropriate, but the inferiority complex on the one hand and the secular nature of government may have prevailed upon them to suggest something else. "It is this widespread acceptance of this myth of the essential superiority of secularised European thought and practice in the field of human affairs" as Abdullahi Smith rightly observed, "which constitute the most formidable obstacles in the way of extricating the contemporary world from the corruption into which it is plunged" [46] Meanwhile the ordinary Muslims continue to take out Zakat from their wealth, amounts or quantities they think fit, when they think fit and distribute it as they think fit. Many are not quite sure how to take out Zakat from modern financial transactions and instruments. The Ulama’ have not been very helpful in satisfying the inquires of many of the faithful eager to discharge their obligations. And all this time no one has deemed it necessary to create a competent institution that can advise Muslims on Nisab of Zakatable items and the appropriate amounts and quantities to be taken out in the variety of forms that wealth exist today. We deemed it fit to have Pilgrim Welfare Boards, even if we can not run them properly, but for some curious reasons, we never saw the need to have their equivalents in the case of Zakat, which is the third of the five pillars of Islam. It will be interesting to find out why was there silence over such an important matter. Could it be that the Ulama’, who are clearly the greatest beneficiaries of this Zakat anarchy, are enjoying it? Or are the Ulama’ out of their depth in modern business transactions and would rather allow this disorganised fashion of payment of Zakat then wake up to the challenge? Or is it part of the symptoms of the secular disease that has afflicted the Muslim Ummah and eaten deep into its fabric? It is not for me to determine this, but we certainly need to find out why. Many Muslims have been worried over this important issue and during the last three decades or so have made efforts here and there to address the issue, especially as the number of beggars keep rising and the quality of life keep deteriorating and otherwise well to do are finding themselves increasingly pauperised by the day. But like most of the responses of Muslims to challenges during this period, these have been feverish, to say the least. Two such efforts however appear to have the potential to address the problem adequately. One of this was the National Conference on Zakat held in December 1981 in Kano. The idea of this conference started in the circles of members of the Bayero University Muslim community, but it was soon taken over by the Ulama’ and by the time the conference was over there were already three hundred people in the committee formed to collect and distribute the Zakat. This, naturally, did not inspire the rich who were to give their Zakat to such a committee. Since then this effort seems to have gone into oblivion. Some of the papers presented at the conference[47] were very good and deserved to be published and circulated widely, so that some of the issues raised could be shared and pursued further, but this did not appear to be the priority of the committee that inherited the conference. The other worthy effort was a special session of Fatwa Commission of the Centre of Islamic Legal Studies, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria which took place in November 1990 at Bagauda Lake Hotel, Kano. The Fatwa commission gathered prominent scholars to address the seemingly simple issue of whether Zakat is compulsory for tubers like Yams and Cassava. Though the fatwa appear specific but it touches on a very important issue, updating our fiqh (jurisprudence) on Zakat. The fatwa was actually a test case on the readiness of our scholars to appreciate the dynamic nature of fiqh as contrasted with the Sharia which enshrines the immutable principles. About a dozen scholars made submissions [48] and majority of them took the view that there was no Zakat for these tubers. Many of them based their views on Maliki texts written some centuries ago by authors who lived their lives either in desert or temperate zones where these tubers don’t grow. The fatwa says more about the preparedness of our Ulama’ to appreciate the dynamic nature of fiqh than about these tubers.