THE POOR PEOPLE'S PERCEPTION OF POVERTY AND ITS IMPLICATION ON THE REALIZATION OF ISLAMIC DEVELOPMENT IN KELANTAN, MALAYSIA

This paper investigates the interrelationship between the poor people's perception of poverty and its implication on Islamic development strategy based on a research in Kelantan, Malaysia. The findings of the survey reveal that there are three dominant perceptions of the poor individuals (respondents) in the study: perceptions toward poverty; perceptions toward the implementation of Zakat; and perceptions toward the local rich. Given the nature of the respondents who are homogeneously poor, this paper will address the implications of the above mentioned perceptions on Islamic development strategy, particularly in Kelantan supposedly the only Islamic state in the Federation of Malaysia, ruled by Pan‐Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS). This paper concludes that imposing an Islamic development strategy will become an almost impossible task in Kelantan considering the existence of the following situations: 1) the ‘top‐down approach’ to Islamic development adopted by Kelantan government itself is not effective enough to be realized, and 2) there is no ‘rigorous’ effort to disseminate information and Islamic values to the general population leading to a true practice of Islam.