THE Ar-Rahmah Zakat Foundation (AZF) has distributed cash and items to no fewer than 40 women in purdah as part of its empowerment scheme.

At the event, the sixth of its kind, held recently in Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State, Alhaji Taofeeq Salisu of the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB), in a lecture titled “Financial Inclusion and Economic Development,” noted that zakat was meant to engender a level of equality in a largely unequal society, such that a receiver of the tax would also become a payer.
  

Given Nigeria’s current unfavourable economic condition, Salisu said the Muslim Ummah could use the zakat fund as a tool to improve financial inclusion and economic development.

He charged all well-meaning Muslims in society to contribute to the financial emancipation of their underprivileged brothers and sisters through the instrumentality of zakat.

Alhaji Abdul-Hameed Omotayo, the Foundation’s chairman, stated that the Foundation was established to promote understanding of zakat, facilitate its effective collection, distribution, and utilization for the benefit of the Muslim populace, and ultimately to increase the number of Muslims who are eligible to observe the pillar of Islam.