Mutual Recognition and Social Accountability in Online Islamic Learning in Indonesia

Business capital assistance from Baitul Mal Aceh is designed to reduce poverty through productive zakat and infaq, yet prior research has mainly assessed its effects on recipients rather than on applicants screened out before aid is granted. This article analyzes the eligibility criteria of five business capital schemes run by Baitul Mal institutions in Aceh between 2024 and 2026, focusing on an age range of 20–60 years and mandatory online registration. The study uses qualitative document analysis of legislation, classical and contemporary fiqh texts on the asnaf categories, official statistics from Statistics Indonesia (BPS), and public announcements; it involves no human participants. The findings show that the age ceiling affects a population in which 55.21% of older persons are in the labour force and 84.69% of working older persons are in the informal sector, while online registration relies on digital access that is lower among older persons, particularly women. Neither the qanun definition of mustahik nor the classical asnaf framework contains an age limit, and another scheme in the same system sets no upper age limit. The article argues that procedural criteria may function as a distributive policy, shifting eligibility from need toward administrative convenience. Its contribution is a coding matrix that links each criterion to its normative basis, burden type, and statistical exposure. Because the analysis is documentary and relies on secondary sources, it identifies potential exclusion rather than measuring its scale.