My Zakat is My Money: Islamic Commercial Banks‘ Responses to State Intervention in Zakat Administration in Indonesia

Abstract

The history of the zakat administration in Indonesia is marked by an ongoing dialectic between individual spirituality and the public realm and the state (Fauzia, 2013). The latter has further been the sites of continuing contestation in modern times between Muslim civil society groups vis-a-vis the government and its apparatus, giving birth to the dual-track of zakat administration: the BAZNAS and the LAZ. Between the two, which the zakat payer prefers one? Why? This article aims to analyze corporate zakat payers’ preference in channeling their zakat payment and inferred from this preference on the state intervention in zakat administration in Indonesia. By employing case studies of channels of corporate zakat payments within Islamic commercial banks, it reveals that Islamic commercial banks acknowledge the state's role in the administration of zakat in Indonesia, especially for the aspects of regulation and supervision. As for the collection and distribution aspects, however, there are reservations among some Islamic commercial banks that do not have their own LAZ with regards to the BAZNAS’s role as the main collector of zakat. Thus, this reservation perpetuates the perennial debate on the extent of state intervention in the zakat administration in Indonesia.