Islamic views VS western views in business

Islamic views VS western views in business

As we can see, islam is a religon which is syumul . It covers all aspects of life. All of them includes the matters in business. Therefore, this article is going to elaborate about how the Islamic views are compared to the western in business matters. From the eyes of the crowd, we can see that western ways in business have many flaws in it. This is due to the fact that their principles in business are man-made while ours are designed by Allah Al-Khaliq . The creator of mankind themselves. Who knows better about anything if not Allah SWT?First and foremost, in Islam, riba  is haram. It is one of the senses of usury . It is also one of the 7 heinous sins which includes murder, syirik, etc. Riba is defined as unjust gains in trade of business such as increasing capital without any service and commodity exchange in unequal quantities. The term they use nowadays are interest, which made the action of giving and taking riba seem acceptable. There are many reasons why Islam doesn’t allow riba in business. One of them is because riba will burden the people who take out loans. It will eventually lead to massive poverty. When massive poverty occur around the world be it in Islamic countries or not, there will be a huge economic crisis. Economic crisis is said to be caused by debts alone . Thus, when economic crisis occur, it will be hard to even maintain the country matters let alone improve and develop a country. When this happen in Islamic countries, Islam will become restrained from spreading wide across the world. Therefore, our responsibility as a Khalifah in this world will be hard to perform. 

Looking from the western aspect, we can see that the westerners promotesriba in business in the name of profit.For example, the interest in bank loans. The westerners feel that this profit from taking interest is acceptable and normal. They don’t actually foresee the future consequences from the action of allowing riba in business. To the western society, charging interest to the debtors are necessary due to the fact that some of the people who take out loans will fail to pay the bank as they promised. Interest to them is a form of guarantee that the debtors will pay their debt on time. This thinking is not true since there are many people who still refuse to pay their debts on time. Furthermore, this system causes a lot of people to become bankrupted which in turn will backfire on the bank’s side. When a lot of people take out loans which they fail to pay due to the high interest rate charged, the bank will run out of cash to give away for people to withdraw. The bank can’t simply print out new bank notes to give away for the people who keep their money in the bank to withdraw. Thus, the original and basic purpose of a bank will be defeated as whole. Moreover, westerner’s way of promoting riba is really a huge burden to the poor since they seem to can’t afford anything if interest is to be charged on the original value. When this happens, stress will build up inside the poor people and eventually lead to suicidal actions or criminal activities. As we can see, Islamic ways of forbidding riba in business have a lot of rationalization. We should believe that what Allah has forbid us from doing is the best choice for us to follow. Allah is after all Al-Khaliq, the one who created us.

Next is buying something that is already booked or to be bought by someone else and stealing other people’s customer . For example, someone has already told the seller that he wants to buy the bag the seller is selling but then came another man who offers a higher price for it and instantly the seller sell it to the second man who offered the higher price. This action is forbidden in Islam since it might lead to a fight, source of rage build up, stress in the relationship between the buyer and seller, loss of trust and many more. Even in cases of engagement, we are not allowed to propose other people’s fiancée. This uses the same concept as stealing other people’s customer. There is not even a single justification in performing this action but showing that the seller is a dishonest person, untrustworthy and greedy. The buyer who bought the item that is already booked by offering a higher price only shows that he is impatient, and arrogant. Thus, there is no good coming from this action that Allah has forbid. This shows how Islam covers all aspects of life to ensure the humankind live in harmony.As not practicing this action will lead to many bad things, practicing it will definitely lead to the opposite such as moulding you to become a more honest person, patient and peaceful minded person. We ourselves as consumers know that we would want a rule much like this to protect our rights to buy something and a seller would feel the same too. 

Western society is a society lead by mostly atheist . They do not believe in God and the life hereafter therefore, they don’t consider the actions that are forbidden in religion. This society is a materialistic society. Thus, in every business matter, the westerners will try to maximize their gain of profit. This includes buying something that other people has intention to buy and stealing other people’s customer as well. This might not be obvious in their culture but amongst the people who lack of moral values, this form of action is normal to their point of view. Lack of moral values is the result of having no religion and belief in God. To muslims, every action will be counted as deed or sin and we will be judged in the hereafter. However, to the western society, they can do whatever they please as long as the man-made law allows it. In the internet for example, there will be a lot of buyer that will approach a seller. Even when a buyer has already confirmed their intention to buy the item, the other buyer who approach the same seller would have no idea about it. Thus, they might offer a higher price to the seller and if the seller is greedy, he can simply sell the item to the second buyer and give excuses to the first buyer. Things like this often happen in the western society since they don’t think that it is wrong to maximize their gain of profit. In the stealing other people’s customer or fiancée aspect, the westerner’s believe in the phrase that ‘the best man wins’ so there is no wrong in performing this action. We can see here that Islam is a very meticulous religion since it covers from the smallest matter to big ones all to ensure the mankind to live together in perfect harmony.

In Islam, we are supposed to state clearly any defects or pros and cons in an item sold. In other words, we have to be truthful in the business transaction .This is the basic must do when becoming a seller in Islam. It is to prevent us from taking something that is not ours, practice honest behaviour and giving away the goods and services that we ourselves would want as a buyer. When selling an item, we should ensure first that the item bought from us doesn’t have any flaws or defects and when giving service, we should open the customers to their right to give building criticism or opinion. The customer should check first the item before they decide to buy them and they have the right to return it when they realize that there is defect in the particular item .When making an advertisement, there should not be any misleading information stated in it because doing so is the same as being dishonest.When promoting an item, we should be perfectly honest explaining its pros and cons. This is what Islam teach their us muslims to do. The benefit from doing this is giving other people the message that muslims are people with great moral values and honest in everything they do. While this kind of message is spread among the none muslims, it will in turn attract the none muslims to come to Islam and the atheist to start believe in Allah. Trust will be able to be built amongst every single person no matter their background and religion.

Meanwhile, in the western countries, there are many actions of misleading in product information. The western people do not practice this value and way Islam taught us. They feel that stating clearly the defects or pros and cons in an item sold will decrease the chance of people buying a product from their hands. Some of the retailers or seller doesn’t even allow their customers to get back refund even when there is a clear flaw in the item sold by them. They feel that this kind of action will cause a huge loss to their business. Furthermore, they enjoy giving away misleading advertisement such as ensuring the customer that their product will cure massive hair loss or will work in approximately these number of days. There are even products that ensure our satisfaction or money to be refund but all those promises are fake and full of lies. When we are not satisfied from the product and demand a refund, many excuses are made to justify their mistakes. This not only will build p rage and stress in the customer but will also prove to everyone that the people selling are dishonest and untrustworthy. How can a society filled with liars and dishonest people flourish? Thus, this action will in turn kill the trust everyone have for each other and the society will soon become a very chaotic society. How can mankind live in harmony like this? There is now way to live in a world without trust and that is why Islam has the guideline as to what we should do and what we shouldn’t. That is why some say that Islam is not just a religion, it is a way of life. 

When selling something that involves a scale, Islam promotes giving away more to the customer is better than giving less.This can be seen in the Quran surah Al-Mutaffifin verse 1-3 and surah Al-Isra verse 35 as well as surah Ar-Rahman verse 9 . In all these three verses, Allah told not to give less than due when giving by measure or weight. We should not in any way give less than what the customer paid for. It is okay for us to give away more but never less. In Makkah for example, when people buy 100 grams of dates, the seller will weigh 100 grams of dates and add on another handful of dates so that he will not accidentally give less than what the customer paid for. Muslims practice this because we believe that Allah sees us and all our actions will be accountable to us in the world hereafter. This is how muslims should actually practice in business matters. The benefit from practicing this is that other people will see us Muslims as a kind hearted person and very generous. Thus, it will not only make the business successful but we will also spread the message of Islam to other people which in turn will attract them to come to Islam and the enemy of Islam just might have a change of heart watching how Islam is the perfect way of life s Allah laid down for us our dos and don’ts. 

After seeing from the Islamic aspect, now let’s see from the western aspect. TheWestern society practices more benefits to self than the customers.As explained earlier, when giving loans, the western bankers tend to charge an extremely high amount of interest which burdens the debtors to a certain extent a lot of people file for bankruptcy. Even with number of  bankruptcy going high up, the western bankers doesn’t mind the fact as long as their wages and salaries are being paid. The business people as also tend to mark-up their margin more than they are supposed to. There are also a lot of frauds going on in big companies .It is fairly easy for a top executive to reduce the price of his/her company's stock – due to information asymmetry. The executive can accelerate accounting of expected expenses, delay accounting of expected revenue, engage in off balance sheet transactions to make the company's profitability appear temporarily poorer, or simply promote and report severely conservative (e.g. pessimistic) estimates of future earnings. Such seemingly adverse earnings news will be likely to (at least temporarily) reduce share price. (This is again due to information asymmetries since it is more common for top executives to do everything they can to window dress their company's earnings forecasts)All these because they do not follow Allah’s guidelines in managing and doing business. What is implanted in their minds are simply maximizing profit and minimizing cost. They do not consider the well-being of their consumers as to whether it will affect their life or not. Western society also often feel that if they give more, they will gain loss which in turn will fail their business. For example, the handful of dates added to the original measurement is considered as loss to the westerners perspective. They feel that what is given is lost. This is a wrong way of thinking because in Islam, Allah is the one who controls our fate and He is the one who will ensure whether the business will prosper or fail drastically. Even when carefully measuring things so that nothing will be measured more or less than the actual  measurement, it is still Allah who decides whether the seller will go bankrupted or successful in his business. There is also a saying that what is not given is lost  which shows how we should always give away more so that we can help others and in turn Allah will hep us.

Islam ensure that the followers of islama.k.amuslims only sell halal things which is not harmful to the buyer.Dealing in unlawful items such as carrion (dead meat), pigs and idols is strongly prohibited in Islam. Dead meat would mean the flesh of any bird or animal dead from natural causes, without being properly slaughtered in an Islamic way. A Muslim, therefore, will not eat the flesh of such an animal or bird. Flesh of an electrocuted animal, or of an animal killed by the blow of a blunt weapon, and of the strangled one is also proscribed in Islam. Also proscribed is the flesh of the animal that has been killed or slaughtered in ways other than Islamic. It is, therefore, not permissible for a Muslim to trade in dead meat. Likewise, trading in pork or intoxicants and sale of idols and statues is not permitted in Islam .Drugs that are not for medical use are also forbidden to be sold or bought in Islam. This rule is as so because of a lot of things. Islam forbid such things because Islam wants to preserve its ummah  so that we become a human being of quality and not become the people who are trouble to the society. We should only consume halal things because it will mould our personality and self-awareness.  The term you are what you eat  is very much applicable in this situation. Islam also prohibits from selling item that has defects or crops that has not yet harden etc. 

On the other hand, western society sells anything that can make them profit be it good or bad.Beers and any other alcoholic drink is clearly harmful to everyone. The westerners admit this fact when they prohibit the citizen from drinking and driving or in other words, driving when drunk . The specific criminal offense is usually called driving under the influence (DUI), and in some states 'driving while intoxicated' (DWI), 'operating while impaired' (OWI), or 'operating a vehicle under the influence' (OVI). Such laws may also apply to boating or piloting aircraft. Vehicles can include farm machinery and horse-drawn carriages. It is proven harmful as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that 17,941 people died in 2006 in alcohol-related collisions, representing 40% of total traffic deaths in the US. Even with all these, still there are hypermarkets selling beers and wines and there are even bars all around the western countries.  In some of the western countries, they even allow prostitution which is clearly a service that is immoral an disgusting. For example, Nevada allows licensed brothels only in some rural counties. Only 8 counties have active brothels. All forms of prostitution are illegal in Clark County (which contains Las Vegas and its metropolitan area), Washoe County (which contains Reno), Carson City, Douglas County, andLincoln County. The other counties allow brothels, but some of these counties currently have no active brothels.  What is happening in the United Stated and other countries of the western clearly shows how the result of living a life without the guidance of Allah SWT. The whole country will be chaotic, crime rates will increase especially when nowadays people are living in a materialistic world. The moral will soon be gone in each and every person and soon, every single person would think of killing themselves or worse, killing others.