Why the Happiest Country in the World is Not a Muslim Country?
- DOI
- 10.2991/assehr.k.200529.217How to use a DOI?
- Keywords
- happiness per capita, Islamic economy, Zakat, Bhutan, social welfare
- Abstract
Religions, especially the Abrahamic that include Islam, claim that faith can bring happiness to mankind. However, Islamic countries are among the unhappiest countries on Earth. The purpose of this article is to examine the happiness determinant of Islamic society in Islamic countries based on Islamic economics framework to happiness. A literature review produces three keys to sustainable social and individual happiness: usury-free finance, Islamic entrepreneurship, and ZISWAF (Zakat, Infak, Sedekah, and Wakaf) empowerment. Based on this framework, we reviewed three global reports: World Happiness Report 2019, Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2019, and Standard & Poor 2019 Islamic Finance Outlook to see the Islamic countries’ positions inside the three happiness elements. The result shows that Islamic entrepreneurship is relatively large. However, ZISWAF is still low, while interest-based finance is still large. This imperfect condition of the Islamic economy contributes to the low happiness of the Muslims in these countries. The findings implicate the importance of Islamic countries to participate in sharia banking and to motivate their citizens to pay zakat, sedekah (alms), infak, and wakaf. The fund will then be managed to effectively, efficiently, and transparently promote society’s welfare.
- Copyright
- © 2020, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.
- Open Access
- This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).
Cite this article
TY - CONF AU - M Elfan Kaukab AU - Z Sukawi AU - Sri Haryanto PY - 2020 DA - 2020/05/04 TI - Why the Happiest Country in the World is Not a Muslim Country? BT - Proceedings of the 1st Borobudur International Symposium on Humanities, Economics and Social Sciences (BIS-HESS 2019) PB - Atlantis Press SP - 1039 EP - 1044 SN - 2352-5398 UR - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.200529.217 DO - 10.2991/assehr.k.200529.217 ID - Kaukab2020 ER -