Background and Purpose: Zakat aims at alleviating poverty through the equitable dissemination of wealth and the fostering of a prosperous Muslim community. To fulfil zakat divine objectives, zakat distribution issues in the contemporary system must be properly identified and discussed to safeguard the welfare of both zakat recipients and zakat payers. This study focuses on uncovering the publication trend in the zakat distribution field. In addition, this study explores the most influential source titles and publications. Lastly, this study also examines the profiling of author themes in zakat distribution research, its evolution and the co-occurrence of the themes. Methodology: This study conducted bibliometric analysis using biblioMagika® and VOSViewer. The Scopus database serves as the primary data source. OpenRefine, was used to clean, harmonize, and transform unstructured Scopus data that corrects discrepancies in English, including synonyms, spellings, and plural. The analysis on the publication trend, source title, publication and authors theme was performed using biblioMagika®. VOSviewer software is subsequently employed in the study to identify the co-occurrence and clusters of the themes. Findings: 136 publications were included in the study after screening, cleaning and harmonization process. It is found that the number of publications and citations fluctuates between the year 2011 and 2025. The highest publications were in the year 2024, while the highest citations were in the year 2020. Jurnal Pengurusan is the most influential source title, while “Zakat Institutions in Malaysia: Problems and Issues” is the most cited publication in the study. The analysis using biblioMagika® reveals that “zakat”, “zakat distribution”, “asnaf”, “zakat institutions” and “Malaysia” are the author themes stated in more than 10 publications. “Zakat”, “zakat distribution” and “asnaf” are influential and well-established themes with over two hundred citations. These themes are viewed as mature and ongoing, with most related research published around the year 2018. The network visualisation map depicts that “zakat”, “zakat distribution”, and “asnaf” are closely connected to each other, with “zakat” listed as the core topic in zakat distribution studies. The VOSviewer further clustered the themes into eight clusters, each consisting of between three and seven themes that construct a research structure. Contributions: The review provides information on the evolution of the authors’ theme in zakat distribution, which provides future insights into zakat distribution issues. Keywords: Zakat distribution, bibliometric, author themes, temporal and citation impact, cluster visualization. Cite as: Ahmad, S., Wan Jusoh, W. N. H., Mustaffa, N. M., Adnan, A. A., & Syafieq Ahmad, M. H. (2026). Profiling zakat distribution literatures: A bibliometric lens. Journal of Nusantara Studies, 11(1), 174-192. http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol11iss1pp174-192
Ahmad et al. (Sat,) studied this question.