Ensuring Beneficiaries' Rights and Legal Protection Through Strengthening Downward Accountability in Waqf Management: A Shariah-Legal Analysis of the Stakeholder Theory

This research explores how stakeholder theory can enhance the protection of waqf beneficiaries’ rights and ensure their legal safeguards through strengthened downward accountability. It reconciles traditional Islamic practices with modern governance principles to improve transparency and beneficiary involvement in waqf governance. The study employs qualitative doctrinal methods, utilising Islamic jurisprudence and legal theories to analyse the rights of waqf beneficiaries, with an emphasis on fiduciary duties, stakeholder accountability, and the need for mutawalli’s legal obligations to implement downward accountability. Findings show that integrating stakeholder theory into waqf management can effectively balance the interests of multiple stakeholders, including waqf beneficiaries. Implementing this principle can enhance accountability, fostering better socio-economic development and protection for waqf beneficiaries. However, addressing power imbalances between the mutawallis and waqf beneficiaries, exacerbated by the lack of a legal requirement for downward accountability from the mutawallis, is essential to ensure the complete protection of beneficiaries’ rights and the efficient and transparent operation of the waqf system. Thus, this study proposes a beneficiary-centric model of waqf governance rooted in stakeholder theory and aligned with Islamic principles, emphasising the need to prioritise beneficiaries’ interests in waqf management and addressing potential challenges to their fulfilment. The research proposes the need to impose enforceable obligations on mutawallis to be accountable to waqf beneficiaries under their management.