The Best in Islam #04 – Business Part 2 of 3

Bilal Philips

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Salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh Allah's peace and blessings beyond each and every one of you. I'd like to welcome you to another episode of our series, the best in Islam. And in this series, we look at various statements from revelation from the texts of revelation found in the Quran and the Sunnah, what God has stated and what His Messenger has stated, may God's peace and blessings be upon him. And these concepts are these instructions. Words of guidance refer to various aspects of human life pointing out for us from the Islamic perspective, what in fact, is the best in our previous episode on business because this was the next heading that we're looking at various

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texts from revelation concerning.

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We looked at two verses from the Quran, which addressed basic principles in business dealings. In this episode, we'll be looking at the Hadith, Narrated by Abu boda Eben Nia, who quoted Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu wasallam God's peace and blessings be upon him as saying, after the little CASB bear on my broader while I'm alone Rajamouli be Eddie, the best earnings are from a blessed sale, and the product of a man's own hands. This was narrated by Imam Achmed in his McNab and is authentic. So this hadith or the statement of the prophets, Allah wa sallam, in which he begins with what we should seek in terms of our business dealings, a blessed sail, bear on my brother, what is a

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bear on Labrador, it should have two conditions fulfilled. One, what is being sold, should itself be halal,

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beneficial to people. And we spoke earlier about the tendency for business to engage in deception in order to maximize profits. However, Islamic business seeks to benefit people, as the prophet may God's peace and blessings be upon him, it said

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that the best of people are those most beneficial to people. So the issue which is most important is that of benefit. So when we trade whenever whatever we're doing, it should be what is in fact beneficial to human society, to the members of society. So we are concerned, or we should be concerned about the product we're selling. We don't just say, Okay, I have a company, and I'm bringing whatever is on the market.

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To the people, we may know that some elements of what is on the market is not beneficial. It's in fact harmful, potentially harmful. As a true Muslim businessman,

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one who seeks the pleasure of God in doing his or her business, the product should matter. It does matter. If what I have to sell is really not good for people. It's really a waste of their money, etc. Then it is better not to sell it. So we choose our products. Well, one level is that it's not beneficial. The other level is that it is haram. We have some Muslim businessmen I've met in different parts of the world who may have variety stores or restaurants or grocery stores etc. And they will sell pork products or they may sell alcohol and they will give the excuse that if we don't sell these products, then the non Muslims won't come. We're living in a non Muslim country. Most of

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our customers are non Muslims, so they won't come to our store.

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or restaurant or whatever if we don't offer these things which are offered in all of the other restaurants and stores, etc. So they compromise and they end up selling, what is haram, that forbidden product which they have sold, that is cursed by Allah, the money they earn is cursed by Allah. So

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as a business person, we have to be concerned about our product, the Islamic Bank, when

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a business person brings a product

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that he or she wishes to market or to develop, or whatever, the Islamic bank will be concerned about that product, is it in fact beneficial to people, halal, etc. If it's not,

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they will not

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partner with that

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business person.

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If it were, in another case, in the conventional bank, the conventional bank doesn't care. As long as your credit is good, we will give you the money

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because we will get our

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benefits through the interest no matter what. So we don't care whether your product is harmful to society, or useless or whatever it is irrelevant to us. So this is one of the fundamental differences between the conventional bank and the Islamic Bank, because it's a business we think bank, but bank is business. So business, the excuse, which is oftentimes given for Muslim business people in non Muslim lands, that is that the non Muslims would not come to their restaurants or to their grocery stores, or to their businesses, unless they were selling these products, which they are normally able to get from the non Muslim restaurants, grocery stores, supermarkets, etc. So

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their business would not succeed. They feel it is a necessity in order to gain success in their business. However, the bottom line is that, yes, maybe their business is flourishing. But every item, which is forbidden, which they sell, is cursed by Allah, the money that they're gaining from it is no good. It doesn't really benefit that it will harm them in the end, because it's an evil deed. So this is not an acceptable

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option. Whether you are successful, or whether you are borderline, you're just getting by

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this should not be determined by halal and haram. You should be in halal.

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And I remember in case when I visited Hong Kong before, one of the sisters there from Sri Lanka, she had a restaurant and she was selling alcohol in there. And I advised her you know, don't your cooking is good. The people love your recipes, etc. To unique restaurant, it will be enough, but you're not selling it. That is not a selling point for your restaurant. And surely enough, when she banned the alcohol, she stopped selling the alcohol in the place. The business continued to thrive. It didn't go down. It was not a failure because she didn't sell alcohol. So, we should not think that our risk our provision is dependent on people to the degree that we would sell what is haram in

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order to gain profits. So on one hand the product of the sale for that sale to be mob rule a blessed sale the product itself must be halal.

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Secondly, the

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product should also be sold in a way which is free from deception. away in which no

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manipulation, no fake material use no

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trickery used in order

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to gain that sale. This is why Prophet Muhammad wa sallam forbade the swearing by Allah in a sale

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People will say Wallahi by God, by Allah. This is a good product, using the name of God in order to try to convince the buyer that this was the real deal. This is forbidden in Islam and I'm allowed to sell products in that way. Because in many cases people will be lying to people,

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trickery and deception. So, for that sale to be a blessed sale, it must be free from all of the various forms of deception.

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And as I mentioned earlier,

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the issue of deception, where Muslim traders put aside this principle of sale by deception and became honest traders. They won the hearts of the populations they had been trading with for centuries. They won their hearts to Islam.

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And places like Indonesia, became

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Muslim lands where we now have over 200 million Muslims. The largest Muslim country in the world is Indonesia, where Islam came through trade through honest trade. So with that, we're going to take a short break and come back to follow up with our look at the best forms of business. Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah

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As Salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.

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In Buhari there is a narration by Osama bin Zayed right we learn who that once the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he stood over one of the high buildings of Medina. And then he said to the people, do you see what I see? They said no, the Prophet sallallahu sallam said, I see afflictions falling among your houses as raindrops fall. That's how the parenting challenges of today's sound like it's a daunting task. With lifestyle changes and more demands on the parents. maintaining a balance between parenting job and other chores is very stressful. There is a plethora of duties with very little time devoted to parenting. multitude of studies indicate that kids are

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Slav alikoum I'd like to welcome you back to our episode on business, the best of business. We began the episode looking at the Hadith of the Prophet may God's peace and blessings be upon him with regards to the best sale. He described that best sale as one

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which was blessed by Allah, blessed by Allah we said because the product which was being sold

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It was halal. And because no deception was used in the selling of that product. The Prophet SAW Salem went on to say, Oh, am I gradually Brd

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and the product of a man's own hands, a man or woman, where they sell what they have produced

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is best if we're able to produce because society depends on products, nobody provides for himself or herself for all of their needs. We need beds to sleep on, we need houses to live in, we need cars to be transported, etc. If one can

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earn one's living by one's own hands, meaning through your own efforts, rather than merely the efforts of others, then

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your earning is considered best in Islam,

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the private the small businesses, but they may call cottage industries etc. Islam encourages that,

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of course, the capitalist system promotes the mega stores, which absorb all of these small businesses and provide products which are now controlled of controlled price, there is no market supply demand issue operating anymore. When the mega store takes over, they fix the price, and people are obliged to pay that price. So they start to manipulate and to exploit the community. And that's why Islam prefers the small business people. Because the market trends supply and demand will operate. And people will have options in terms of what they're going to get, what they're going to purchase and all these kinds of things, their options available. And so, many people are able to

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benefit, you know, all the people who are producers are in the societies. So, many more people benefit, when you go to the mega store now, which absorbs all those little stores, a lot of people go out to work,

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the numbers are reduced, the products are controlled, the people are manipulated, their interests, their desires, their feelings are manipulated through

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advertisement, etcetera, etcetera. So, the work of the man with his own hands is something highly valued from the Islamic perspective that he seeks to provide himself and that work of hand should be respected. The fact that the province wa sallam had said the best earnings are from a blessed sale and the product of a man's own hands. This tells us also to respect the

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what may be called

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hand labor or labor. On that basic level in the society, what tends to happen is that those people who are laborers, who are digging ditches,

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paving roads, building buildings, these people are among the lowest paid as a society, they are looked down upon, especially in the Third World Of course, in the first world countries know a person who is a garbage collector is paid quite handsomely person who is a builder, paid quite handsomely, bricklayer paid very handsomely. But in the third world, that labor is not valued.

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It's not given its proper value. Such people are looked down upon from the Islamic perspective, they are supposed to be looked up, we should teach our children to respect such people. And the Prophet may God's peace and blessings be upon him said that Islam respects them, that their earnings are looked at as the best, far better than those who sit in offices just signing papers and giving instructions here and there. No, it is not to say that the person who is a manager or supervisor etc. Who doesn't engage in work of his own hands, is of no value. No, of course they're important.

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And in fact, you know, they're the ones who make the whole project or company business function effectively. But from the view of Islam, those who do the hard work, are looked at as being more blessed. And they are ones who, of course, will tend not to look down on people, those who tend to be in the upper echelons of business, etc, they tend to look down on such people. And this is what also reduces the blessing in the work that they do. So this work of the common person in the society, it should be respected. And this is what the prophet made us peace and blessings be upon him is stressing here, that that man's effort with his own hands, and especially in fields of

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agriculture, and these kinds of things, of course, when it says his own hands, of course, he might be driving a tractor, right? It doesn't necessarily mean that he literally has to take his hand and do everything he does, you know, he has to cut the, the plants by hand, it's such a no, if he's driving the machine, which cuts the plants, etc, then that's still considered to be the work of his hands, the people who are providing for the society as a whole, they should be respected, respected by the members of the society, regardless of what level of society they come from, the government should respect them, the society as a whole should hold them in a position of honor, because they

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are the ones who are maintaining the society, you know, recognition of people's country contributions is important. You know, so much so that the Prophet Muhammad SAW sent them and said, Man, lamb, Yosh, Quran, Aslam, escuela, whoever doesn't thank people who are not grateful to people, I'm not grateful to God to Allah. So when we speak about the work of the person with their hands, what we're talking about is being grateful for their efforts. respecting them is part of showing gratitude to the work that they're doing. And wherever we have that kind of humility, to show gratitude to them. Then, of course, Allah blesses that type of society, a society, which respects

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its hard working members, and the job that they're doing for the benefit of the society as a whole. So, as the Prophet sallallahu Sallam had said, the best earnings are from the blessed sale. And we said, that blessed sale is one which is free from haram products. What is being sold is halal, first and foremost. Secondly, the what is being sold is in fact beneficial to people. Not only is it halal, but it should be beneficial and not harmful to them.

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And not useless products where they have been manipulated by the entertainment media, advertisement, etc. They've been tricked into buying things which are really of no benefit to them.

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This is something which is disliked. It's not a blessed sale, it may not be haram, because people are still choosing to buy it, but it is not blessed, and the work of the laborer. The laborers work should be honored, it should be respected,

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that should be praised in the society, through the government channels, through the educational field, etc. People should grow up respecting the hard labor or people who work with their hands. They should not be looked down upon.

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And they should be given fair pay for their work. That is something essential for society to be productive, and to be morally sound

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where respect is lost, then people are cheated. They're not being paid their fair wages, etc.

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Simply because they belong to that class of hard laborers. They're exploited and cheated by the big managers and big companies etc. This represents the crumbling of the character

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or, or the morality of the society. So, Prophet Muhammad wa sallam gave us this guidance to understand what is in fact, beneficial and good for society with regards to business. With that, we are going to end this episode, and we still have some more words of guidance, gems of advice from the Prophet, may God's peace and blessings be upon him with regards to business, and what in fact is the best from the Islamic perspective as to business in general. So, we bid you farewell. And hope to see you in our coming episode. Salaam Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh barakato