Covid-19 that emerged in Wuhan, China and spread to Malaysia starting from 25th January 2020 has changed people’s lives and impacted the world’s economy, including the stock markets. The study investigates the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the stock returns in Malaysia by using a sample of thirty (30) constituents of FBM KLCI. The study utilises Malaysia’s daily Covid-19 new cases, death cases, cumulative cases, and cumulative death cases, as well as Singapore new cases and death cases. The impact is observed from 31st December 2019 until 9th June 2020 using the panel regression model. The results show a significant positive but small impact of Covid-19 variables on the stocks’ returns except for Singapore daily cases and death cases, which were negative. The study also identifies that the Malaysian stock market is more sensitive to Covid-19 local death cases during the pandemic.

Predicting the collection of zakat in Malaysian zakat institutions is crucial for effective zakat distribution. The surplus problems in zakat funds motivated this study to use more precise statistical methods to predict the future trend of zakat collection. The main objective of this paper is to forecast monthly zakat collection for 12 months ahead of the Lembaga Zakat Selangor (LZS). This research used the Seasonal Exponential Smoothing (Holt-Winters) model to predict zakat collection in LZS. The study utilised monthly zakat collection time series data from 2010 to 2018. The analysis was carried out using Excel Solver. The findings show that the Holt-Winters model is suitable to forecast the monthly zakat collection of LZS as it accounts for seasonal variation. The finding of this study indicates that the Holt-Winters Multiplicative (HWM) model best fits the monthly zakat collection time series data. The multiplicative form of Holt-Winters model yields 24.51% lower error compared to the additive one using the Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE). The findings of this study will help zakat institutions to accurately predict future zakat collection which may consequently improve the management of zakat distribution without leaving a significant amount of zakat surplus. The forecast results can also be used to create a strategy to handle zakat funds based on the amount of registered asnaf. In addition, the study can serve as a basis for the development of a framework to forecast future zakat collections.

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The study measures the efficiency of zakat collection and distribution by Islamic Religious Council of Perak (MAIPk) in Malaysia between 2013 to 2017. The efficiency of zakat collection and distribution are important to ensure zakat institution achieves the objective that has been established by the society. Previous studies show that the society still have negative perception in the effectiveness of zakat distribution by zakat institutions, hence affect the level of Muslim’s confidence to perform their duties to pay zakat through the institutions. This research applied two-stage DEA analysis to measure the efficiency of zakat collection and distribution. The findings form 3 efficiency measures which are technical efficiency, allocative efficiency and cost efficiency for both MAIPk’s role of collecting and distributing zakat in Perak. The results show that zakat collection full efficiency is achieved in 2017 while that of zakat distribution is in 2015.

The study explores the Shariah index membership effect around index revision period especially to the newly added and deleted constituent stocks (termed as event stocks). This study analysed 40 event stocks for Shariah blue-chip index, Dow Jones Islamic Market Titans Malaysia 25 Index (DJIMY25). The analysis was conducted over a period of seven years (2009-2015) using event study methodologies which capture abnormal returns, trading volumes, and return volatility, and discussed the extent of market efficiency. The study divided the event stocks into three groups – additions, deletions due to the index annual rebalancing and deletions due to non-Shariah compliance. The findings of this study provide a new evidence on index additions and deletions contrary to the ones reported in previous studies. Surprisingly, additions to DJIMY25 produces negative results with permanent decrease in stock returns and temporary decrease in trading volumes. The deletions either due to the index annual rebalancing or non-Shariah compliance have shown negative results with the decrease in stock price, temporary decrease in trading volumes and increase in the stock’s absolute volatility. The finding of this study implied that index membership in Shariah index can induce Shariah compliant risk for the firms that are unable to maintain their Shariah compliant status in the long-term.