Addressing Pertinent Development Questions in the Muslim World

This chapter addresses both the research questions and the objectives upon which the entire book has been structured. The research questions have been raised based upon the authors’ assumption that inasmuch as the poverty alleviation frameworks designed and implemented in the Muslim world may yield some positive results, the impact will not reflect uniformly in all the Muslim countries taking into account the existing differences in their natural resource endowments, level of socio-economic development and the creed of governance . For that reason, the following questions have been addressed in this chapter: what is the scale of poverty in the Muslim world ? To what extent do resource endowments and utilisation influence social and economic development , thereby impacting poverty alleviation in the Muslim world ? How potent and successful are the public poverty alleviation strategies and programmes pursued in the Muslim countries? And to what extent has the institution of Zakat been effectively incorporated into the public poverty alleviation strategies in the Muslim countries?