The Art of Dawah

Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim 

(In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful)

 

By: Brother Hanif Mohamed

Invite (all) to the Way of thy Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching; and reason with them in ways that are best and most gracious: for thy Lord knoweth best, who have strayed from His Path, and who receive guidance. (H.Q. 16:125)

Advertisement and marketing are two areas that are focused heavily on in the west. You see that businesses devote a great deal of their profits in these fields. These companies have come to an understanding that the key to success in business is proper presentation. They know that the more alluring a product or service is made to appear the more in demand it will become. No one wants a product that is ragged, torn down, or unattractive. This approach of putting forth a good product with good presentation has to be employed by the Muslims.

They Insist That Business is Like Ar-Riba

By Mohammad Shafi J. Aga, Bombay, India

 In the Name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful

"And Allah has permitted business (bai'a) and prohibited Ar-Riba," 

The Qur'an says in continuation of the captioned quote from verse Q: 2.275.

The subject caption above is a quote from the Qur'aan - part of 275th verse in Chapter 2 thereof  [Q: 2.275].

I do not have before me now any historical evidence of people living at the time of revelation of the Qur'aan saying so, but I know of people in my own age - some of the religious leaders of my own Faith- saying so. They say that the banking business is Ar-Riba. In fact, they have gone even beyond the Qur'anic quote. They do not say that this business is like Ar-Riba. They say it is Ar-Riba.

By business, of course, what they mean here is the earnings that it generates. Since a bank invests a substantial portion of the money it holds in debt instruments - in giving loans for trade and industry etc. - the interest accrued on such loans constitutes a major source of its earnings.

Most of the money that a bank gets as interest goes in meeting bona fide expenses like salaries to staff, office rentals and equipment, interests paid to depositors etc. The rest of it is the net earning of the bank. The open market forces oblige the bank to keep its net earning/profit margin as low as possible.

Islamic Economy: Its Ideological and Legal Foundations

By Ayatullah Muhammad Ali Tashkiri

Every system, intending to achieve certain goals, must be designed in a realistic manner. Therefore, if the system is supposed to be implemented in order to serve human life, particularly in the long-run, it must serve man's goals and be consistent with his fitrah (primordial nature). This is not possible unless the designer of the system has a command over the knowledge necessary for understanding social and individual aspects of man. Besides, the designer should have a thorough understanding of actual relations between those two aspects of man and the primordial nature of man as well. In addition to those prerequisites, the designer should understand the historical trends of such a relationship, the needs for the development of such relationships and methods for pursuing those needs in order to realize an evolutionary, human approach toward actualizing the goals of the creation of man.

Basics of Islamic Economy

As the prosperity and moral and material well-being of the community is not possible without a rich and healthy economy, Islam, as a progressive religious system, has included this question in its program.
 

Zakat
Islam, in order to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor, has legislated the law of zakat, and ordered the rich to pay a just share of their money and individual income as zakat to the public treasury .The money, so collected, constitutes a very large amount which can play an important role in combating poverty, narrowing class gap and ensuring an over-all development. The leaders of Islam have said that the amount of zakat has been so precisely determined that if all those on whom zakat is due, pay it honestly, poverty can be totally uprooted. Poverty exists only because a large number of people evade the obligation of this vital duty of theirs. The eight categories prescribed for the expenditure of the zakat money fully illustrate the aim and importance of this Islamic Law and throw light on its role in the formation of a healthy society.

ECONOMIC DISTRIBUTION IN ISLAM

PRESENTED BY
AL-BALAGH FOUNDATION
 

"Whatever spoils given by Allah to His Messenger from townspeople belongs to Allah and to the Messenger, and to the nearest of kin, and to the orphans, and the indigent, and the wayfarer, so that it may not circulate amongst the rich of you. And what the Messenger gives you, take it then; but forsake what he forbids you. And venerate Allah, for He is stern in retribution." Holy Qur'an (59:7) 

"Were it my money I would have distributed it among them equally. But it is Allah's."

Imam Ali (a.s.)

PREFACE

Praise is due to Allah for His explicit and implicit favours. Peace and blessings are on the brilliant light, the giver of good tidings and warnings, our master Muhammad and on his infallible household and the righteous among his companions.

Today, the world appears to becoming more lost in self-generated chaoses economic problems take precedence over all other hardships and haunt the rulers of both the Eastern and Western blocks.

The Islamic Economic System and Europe

A few reflections regarding Iqtisaduna by Ayatullah Sayyid Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr's work Iqtisaduna ("Our Economics") is constituted by a comparison between different economic systems, namely capitalism, Marxism and Islamic economy in the light of the author's conception of these systems.
Sadr's point of departure in his work can be regarded as ideological, however it is beyond question a scholarly method with footnotes, with a usual account of sources and the text enables the reader to follow the author from his reasoning to the conclusions he draws.
The point of departure that Sadr presents above all is the fact that there is no other framework within which to find solutions to the problems of backwardness in Muslim countries with the exception of the framework of the Islamic economic system. Further reasoning regarding this standpoint constitutes a dominant feature of Iqtisaduna.

The Ethical Rules for Research in Islamic Economics

 By

Dr. Monowar Hossain

The Ethical Rules for Research in Islamic Economics

1. Background and justification

There is a belief among many Muslim economists that Islamic economics has come of age. It really has not and may take a long time to do so. What has happened is a noticeable growth of studies in Islamic banking and finance commensurate with the rapid growth of petro dollar in the oil producing countries of the Middle East which happen to be Islamic. In their understandable eagerness to gain control over these investable resources, western banks and financial institution hurriedly learned about Quranic prohibition of interest (rate) and gets up Islamic windows in their own banks. 

The failure of economic theories

Hendri Tanjung , Islamabad | Wed, 02/04/2009 9:03 AM | Opinion In 2005, US treasury secretary John Snow said, “The idea that we are going to see a collapse in the housing market seems to me improbable.” The belief that housing is a safe and good investment, combined with low interest rate and availability of alternative investments leads to mania for homeownership. People started buying more homes although they already owned a house. For those who did not have their own house, they dealt with mortgage brokers. This led to the overbuilding of houses. 

The End of Prosperity: Can Islamic Finance Help?

By Mahomed Shoaib Omar (Specialist Corporate & Islamic Finance Attorney)
Posted: 21 Dhul Hijjah 1429, 20 December 2008

The meltdown of the global financial system has raised profound questions of its fundamental structural reform.  The downward spiral in the US and Western Europe is described by financial experts as deleveraging : the forced reduction of accumulated debt by households and financial institutions.  As more assets get dumped into the market, prices are driven down further, which in turn necessitates more deleveraging.  This vicious cycle has gained such momentum that even the massive bailout packages may not be sufficient to stop it.  The bursting of the debt-fuelled property bubble in the US, together with the crippling losses suffered by banks, has set in motion a chain-reaction that, in a worst-case scenario, (according to Prof Niall Ferguson of Harvard) could lead to a 21st century version of the Great Depression (1).

Islamic System Economy Global Solution

The global economic crisis starts from the US economic crisis. It makes sense because the USA is one of the largest trading countries in the world. So, when something bad hits the US economy, it will also hit the rest of the world. Many people have started to think that Islamic economic system as an alternative solution for the global economic crisis because the current economic system (the conventional economic system) is not working to fix the problem.

Shattering Ten Misconceptions About Islam

In this article, we will try to clear up many of the misconceptions that are prevalent about Islam. Before jumping into the list of misconceptions directly, it is important to give a little interesting background about the source of Islam.

Islam is the name of a way of life which the Creator wants us to follow. We avoid the word religion because in many non-Islamic societies, there is a separation of "religion and state." This separation is not recognized at all in Islam: the Creator is very much concerned with all that we do, including the political, social, economic, and other aspects of our society. Hence, Islam is a complete way of life.

Promoting Social capital Through Zakat

"Social capital refers to the institutions, relationships, and norms that shape the quality and quantity of a society's social interactions. Increasing evidence shows that social cohesion is critical for societies to prosper economically and for development to be sustainable. Social capital is not just the sum of the institutions which underpin a society – it is the glue that holds them together" There are many identified sources which contribute to social capital. These Include but are not limited to families, Communities, Civil society, Ethnicity, Gender and Faith. The Term was Introduced in late 1960,s and today considered as an important factor in development process.

However we can analyze that Islam introduced concept of social solidarity and social capital more than fourteen centuries ago. Among other acts of worship Zakat plays an important role in building social capital within and among different societies. Islam's concept of social capital, universal brother hood and mutual care and love can be analyzed from following verses of Quran.

Zakat: Islamic To overcome Poverty

The economics of zakat and its relevance to modern times is a hotly debated issue among both religious and liberal Muslims. This series of articles will attempt to explain the concept of zakat in the light of only the Quran and the faithful implementation of this concept by Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). We will see how a similarly implemented system can solve the current economic problems of not just Muslims, but of the whole world.

Article

From command economies to traditional, barter, bubble and service economies, this section details numerous topics relative to various types of economies.

This section has been designed to provide background information about different aspects of various economics.

This section includes articles related to different types of economic systems, as well as a number of contemporary issues influencing the world economy, the distribution of economic powers, the issue of globalization, and other topics of interest.

While different types of economies prevail in certain regions of the world, these economies may illustrate many similarities, as well as differences, depending on the specific example.
A fuel economy for instance, is dominated by the international demand for crude oil and gasoline, while a command economy is a market system that is heavily regulated by the government.