A Review of the Literature on Zakah between 2003 and 2019

This research aimed to critically review literature on the development of Zakah research from 2003 through 2019. This research employed a descriptive method and a qualitative approach. Classification is to be made into 8 categories of research, namely management, poverty, Zakah payment, organizational performance, collection and distribution, tax and Zakah, development and measurement of Zakah, and others. This research found that the topic garnering the most interest was poverty. This is because Zakah would reduce the poverty rate of a country.


INTRODUCTION
The development of Islam-based economy in Indonesia has been close to stepping into the fourth decade since the establishment of Bank Muamalat in Indonesia back in 1992. Specifically to the studies of sharia accounting, massive discussions started to emerge early in the 2000s with a stress mainly placed on the epistemology and development direction of sharia accounting in the future. The discussions were led by three figures, Prof. Sofyan Syafri Harahap (almarhum, Allah yarham), Prof. Iwan Triyuwono, and Assoc.Prof. Madya Muhammad Akhyar Adnan. Not only relates to profit-oriented entities, sharia accounting development has also touched the public sector, including mosques and Zakah Managing Organization (OPZ). It was observed that the first publication related to Zakah accounting study recorded was an article published on the journal "Media Riset Akuntansi, Auditing & Informasi" in 2002 by Harahap and Yusuf (2002) which reviewed the patterns of Zakah calculation, identification of Zakah imposition and recognition, and issues on Zakah reporting to sharia-based business entities. It can be said that this serves as the starting point of studies specifically concerning Zakah accounting in Indonesia (Sofyani, 2019).
As stated by , paying Zakah constitutes one of the five fundamental obligations of the Muslims. It is a mandatory out of 100 articles published were also about poverty. Similarly, the research by Tanjung and Nurman Hakim (2017) found that 29 out of 152 published articles raised poverty as its object of discussion. This suggests that the discussions on poverty have garnered attention from a number of researchers.
From 2014 on, some researchers have been conducting a study on the topic of "Zakah and poverty alleviation." Aisyah (2014) concluded that Zakah in the teaching of Islam may play an effective role in poverty alleviation if it is integrated into all of the development strategies and programs of a state and if it applies a percentage greater than the Zakah proceeds for productivity that will allow the increase of Zakah use in poverty alleviation.  provided evidence on the positive effect and effectiveness of Zakah targeting in poverty alleviation around Jabodetabek, Indonesia. It was found that incident, depth, and severity of poverty between Zakah beneficiaries have been reduced thanks to the contribution of Zakah organizations. Moreover, there is an indication that the Zakah targeting policy seems to be relatively effective over the period. The most underprivileged groups of society such as households under the leadership of the uneducated, the unemployed, and single parents are some of the beneficiaries of priority of Zakah managing organizations.

RESEARCH METHODS
This research employed a descriptive method and a qualitative approach. It was focused on the main topics of research discussions, research percentage, research development, research types, and approaches to Zakah research. The research observed 225 articles published over a period of 17 years from 2003 through 2019. The articles of focus of this research concerned Zakah in several countries. The articles were classified into 8 categories, namely management, poverty, Zakah payment, organizational performance, collection and distribution, tax and Zakah, development and measurement of Zakah, and others.

Development of Main Topics of Zakah Research Discussions
The following are 225 articles on Zakah published over the last 17 years that were observed by the researchers. Table 1 presents the development of the main topics of Zakah research discussions from 2003 through 2019. The topic of poverty was the most discussed, while the topic of tax and Zakah was the least.

CONCLUSIONS
The analysis results showed that Zakah research has been developing from year to year. The development culminated in 2018. Most of the research discussed poverty in many countries as one of the purposes Zakah serves is to alleviate poverty. The Zakah research was mostly based in Indonesia. Descriptive methods and qualitative approaches were of the most interest. It is hoped that more countries, especially Muslim-majority countries, would discuss Zakah on the basis that Zakah would help the countries alleviate poverty.