Islamic estate planning relies on combination of three main components which are shariah laws pertaining to the inheritance, civil laws and financial planning. One of the tools that used to manage estate from Islamic perspective is Faraid. Faraid is still stand up as a cornerstone of Islamic estate planning. The process of administration and distribution of Muslim's deceased estates in Malaysia starts when the deceased died either with intestate or testate. If the deceased left the Wasiyyah, it will be easy for the heirs to claim the estate and the time period is shorten. For the estate that values not exceed RM 50,000, cash will be issued and deliver by the Amanah Raya Berhad to the heirs. But if the value is exceed RM 50,000, and less than RM 600,000, only declaration will be issued and further legal process must be followed. After the estate was accumulated and calculated the value, net estate value will be distributed according to Faraid whereby man heirs will receive 2 times more than woman heirs. But if there is no Wasiyyah was left, the process to distribute the estate become complex and take longer time period because of several problems. After that, the estate will be distributed according to Faraid. Although Islamic Estate is important, it is still not widely practiced in Malaysia because low level of awareness especially Muslims and they did not view it seriously because Malaysian Muslim's more prefer their estate was organized using traditional methods that is faraid. Their ignorance leads to estate administrations and settlement problem. There are three reasons behind the poor practice of the Islamic Estate planning and leaving Wasiyyah which are they are not really knowledgeable about Wasiyyah and its significances, they are reluctant to write Wasiyyah eventhough they are well informed about it or they cannot afford to draw up a Wasiyyah eventhough they are well informed about it. Although the Islamic estate planning services has growing rapidly recently with the various types of products, there are a room that can be explored and expanded in the future so that Malaysia Muslims was aware about the important of preparing the Wasiyyah to manage their wealth after they died. Appointment of an executor (wasi), allocation for bequest (only allowed up to one third), Hibah (either Hibah Trust or Direct Hibah), trust account, mutually acquired property and Faraid value distribution documents are the examples of the Islamic estate planning services in Malaysia.
ARTICLE 2: BAYT AL-MAL AND THE DISTRIBUTION OF ZAKAT
Bayt al-Mal is an Arabic term for "House of money". Historically Bayt al-Mal is a financial institution that responsible for the administration of zakat in Islamic states. Bayt al-Mal is not only accountable to distribute the wealth from the "Have" to "Have-nots" but also in managing national trading activities, coordination of foreign exchange and international trade transaction. There are three types of Bayt al-Mal. Firstly types is Bayt al-Mal al-khass. It served as a royal treasury for the Caliph and Sultan. Second type is Bayt al-Mal. It is similar to a state of bank for Muslims except it does not cover all the Central Bank functions. Third is Bayt-u Mal al-Muslimin that is served as a public treasury. It was not only for the Muslims but also for the all citizens in Islamic States. Sources of Bayt al-Mal comes from special wealth and general wealth. Special wealth means that all revenue that had determined by the Shariah while general wealth means all wealth that collected with exception of zakat. Zakat is the main sources of special wealth. Zakat translated as 'purifying' or 'making pure'. By giving zakat, Muslims purify their souls from selfishness, greediness and purifying their wealth to gain Allah's blessing. Those Muslims with wealth above the minimum level and held for certain period of time is obliged to pay zakat. In Arabic term, it is called "Haul and Nisab". All the funds will be distributed to eight categories of recipients (8 asnaf) who already mention in Al-Quran. All those recipients are poor, destitute, zakat collector, those who need special attention and kind treatment in order to win their hearts, freeing human beings from bondage, those unable to pay their debts, spending in the cause of Allah and travelers who run out of money and the handicapped. Although zakat is well known as purifying wealth, there are still a controversial issue about its coverage, rates, beneficiaries and administration among Muslims scholars from different schools scholars. There is issue about coverage of zakat because today there are many form of wealth that was not exist in earlier days of Islam such as machinery and capital goods. So, it becomes an issue how to pay zakat for those forms of wealth and whether need to pay or not. The issue about rate of zakat is because the arguments in favor of valuation of the nisab (the exemption limits prescribed by the Shariah) are more difficult. It based on economic reason that are difficult to treat three branches of fiscal planning comprise of resource allocation, economic stabilization and income and wealth distribution. Whatever it is, a rate of zakat is permanently fixed by Islamic Law and it is accepted by Ulama'.
ARTICLE 3: BENEFICIARIES IN FAMILY TAKAFUL IN THE GLOBAL CONTEXT
Muslims should take Islamic Insurance policy (Takaful) because it is very important to help them reducing risk if something bad happens to them or their family. The policy will cover their property. At least benefits from the insurance will be enjoyed by their family after their death. To make sure that all the benefits will be enjoyed by the right person, Insurance Policy Company has their own rules and regulations whereby only someone who has insurable interest on the subject matter of the policy will be eligible for the benefits. Under Islamic Law, insurable interest was based on principle of al-Milkiyah, al-Mirath and al-Wasiyah. Principle of Al-Milkiyah means that ownership. As long as the policy holder is alive, he would have the sole ownership. Its difference with principle of al-Mirath and al-Wasiyah, the benefits will be disbursed and distributed to the rightful person after his death. Principle of al-Mirath means that inheritance while principle of al-Wasiyah means bequest. Right of beneficiary will depend of two situations. Firstly,the property is becomes Waqaf by the policy holder. It will belong to Allah (s.w.t) and the policy holder (Waqif) has no right over the property. The benefits of property will be used by people as a public property. Secondly, if the policy holder has unsettled debts even after his death, the benefits of the policy will be enjoyed by the recipients after several procedures. Firstly, all the total benefits from the policy will be calculated together with other wealth left by the policy holder. Secondly, unsettled debt of the policy holder will be deductable by his properties. Thirdly, the funeral expenses of the policy holder should be deducted from his remaining properties. Fourthly, the remaining properties will be deducted with the portion given away in his lifetime as al-Wasiyah (will). The portion is 1/3 of the will. The final step is to distribute the remaining properties among the heirs according to the principles of al-Mirath. All the procedures need to be followed steps by steps.
ARTICLE 4: APPRECIATION OF SYARIAH PRINCIPLES IN PROPERTY
MANAGEMENT IN CONTEMPORARY MALAYSIA SOCIETY
In Malaysia, Muslim may manage their property based on Syariah principles. Wealth accumulation is permissible in Islam with the conditions that there are no manipulations, unjust or monopoly of wealth by certain persons. Besides that, the way to accumulate wealth must be acceptable and permissible by Syariah compliance and the wealth should spend in the right ways in order to get Allah's blessing and reward. Some forms of property managements are investments, savings and insurance that comply with syariah compliance. As long as a thing is clean, beneficial and worthiness (mutaqawwim) it is consider as a property. Historically, property or mal was acquired by ihya al-mawat or revival of dead land (exploration new lands), al-sayd or hunting (whether capturing or killing wild animals or fishing) or ghanimah (war's bounty). But in Modern days, trade and business is the ways to acquired wealth. However, trade and business that make by people still need to follow the syariah guidelines. Furthermore, Islam also permissible innovation and creativity as long as it not contravene the principles of syariah. According to the devolution of property management in Malaysia, no devolution is allowed unless for the purpose of obligatory or commendable. Otherwise it is encouraging to make an charitable donation to help poor and needy people who really need donation to survive. The property also can e transferred to another by means of contractual obligations in terms of bequest (Wasiyyah), gift (Hibah) and trust property (Waqf). In Islamic states, faraid is the way to distribute the property to the heirs and it also mentions in Quran. However, in many cases, faraid have little problems regarding to the time consuming, complicated, costly, fractional shares and no differentiate between movable and immovable property. It happens because nature of Malay and modern life. The best solution to overcome the problems is Hibah since property can be transferred to family members with term choose and decide by the donor. Today, syariah principles have give huge appreciation not only to the banking and finance system but also to the management of wealth. It is important so that Muslims people will use Islamic System and leaving conventional system that very familiar to the riba that clearly prohibited by Allah (s.w.t).
ARTICLE 5: ZAKAT FUNDS AND WEALTH CREATION
Zakat funds and wealth creation is one form of wealth management. The primary goal of zakat is to eradicate poverty. So, to achieve the goal, zakat funds will be invest on behalf of beneficiary groups before redistribution in order to help rural group. It is believed that the current management of zakat funds is partly responsible for reducing the role of zakat to a mere charity fund and to be essential Islamic socio-economic institution and a wealth-creating to be. Hence, according to Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, the share to be distributed to each group depends on two matters which are the degree of need of any potential beneficiary and the size of the zakat funds collected. Nevertheless, Limited amount of zakat funds and the high demand are reason enough to have efficient management, allocation and distribution on zakat funds. Zakat is being collected mostly on a voluntary rather that compulsory basis and that the demand for zakat balances for exceeds available funds. There are two observations which are it hardly needs saying that the need of even one of the eight specified beneficiary groups cannot be entirely or satisfactorily met. Second, redistributing these limited amounts of funds, mostly in monetary terms, to meet the consumption needs of some individuals, is economically an inefficient way of utilizing them. Moreover the stage-implementation plan is a long-term strategy for fighting poverty that aims, in the short-term, at one subgroup among the poor. However, poverty is a massive problem, which it is imperative to parcel up in order to deal with it properly. Therefore, we hold that stage implementation should involve the following steps. Firstly, target the poor out of the zakat beneficiary groups as generally speaking, they are the ones that need immediate assistance. Second, make helping one subgroup of the poor the short-term goal of the plan. Third, direct all zakat funds to benefit that subgroup. Fourth, allocate all zakat funds to an investment project with high local or national socio-economic priority. Finally, distribute a high percentage of the returns on the investment to the targeted subgroup, while continuing the original investment. Oran (1999) divides the poor into two subgroups which are those who are poor on account of personal factors like age or disability and those who are poor on account of external factors such as socio-economic conditions. So it is highly important that zakat is the most socio-economic Islamic institutions that play important role in life of Muslims society.
