Ep 254. - Can Money Buy Happiness? Advice from an Islamic Finance Insider | Umer Suleman
Wealth and its accumulation is an obsession for many of us. But how much is too much, and what social and ethical value should we place on our finances? We speak to Umer Suleman, the Chief Risk Officer overseeing Shariah and compliance at Wahed. For someone involved in the investment sector, what he shares may surprise many of you. You can find Umer Suleman here:
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Transcript - This is an AI generated transcript and may not reflect the actual conversation.
Introduction
0:00
Does money buy happiness? We all understand that this life is one that we have to be accounted for.
0:06
People who will come on the day of judgment who suffered in this life that they will have the ease in the hereafter. Especially now what's happening in we have this sense of their next life is taken
0:15
care of. The prophetam being the last prophet to enter paradise because he was a king and wealthy
0:21
in this life. Does Islam say that at some stage you should stop accumulating wealth? It's neutral.
0:27
Money is neutral and it's a facilitator actually. So when it comes to home ownership, health care, financial literacy, education, we actually lag behind. When we look at the day of judgment, the
0:37
son of Adam, their feet will not move until they ask five questions. The wealth is two questions of the five. And our modern financial system is entirely unjust and built upon haram. Wealth and
0:48
its accumulation is an obsession for so many of us. But how much is too much? and what social and
0:54
ethical value should we place on our finances? We speak to Omar Suliman who is the chief risk
1:00
officer looking at Sharia and compliance at Wahid. What he tells us may surprise so many of you
1:13
and welcome to the thinking Muslim for joining us. I'm really excited about today's conversation. Um we had a while back Harris Saran
1:24
on the show and we explored the topic of Islamic finance and whether a lot of Islamic finance is
1:31
is particularly Islamic and he obviously had a a view about that. Now you are uh the chief risk
1:38
officer for Wahid um a halal investment company I suppose we can call you. I I suppose I need to
Does money buy happiness?
1:46
start with uh the question that I would like an answer to. Does money buy happiness? Does money
1:53
buy happiness? I guess we would say then if that was true that the richest people are the happiest
1:59
people. But that's not our lived experience. Uh and we live in a time where everything pushes
2:07
you towards understanding that that money does buy happiness. But actually even when there was
2:13
some research done when it came to salaries etc. They found that after a certain point,
2:19
money doesn't impact your happiness or satisfaction. So money takes you to a
2:24
certain path, it can make you comfortable. It can give you the perception of happiness, but money
2:32
doesn't give you real happiness. And actually, it goes back to when he said that, you know,
2:38
true wealth is contentment. M and those who are rich I found and I've spent time around some very
2:46
very very wealthy people super wealthy and they always worried about something for another they
2:52
have more to lose and that level of contentment uh I've I've traveled around the world and I've
2:58
seen a level of contentment in simple people that I've not found with the super rich how so
3:04
explain that contentment there was you know subhan Allah they there wasn't this worry there was this
3:10
reliance on Allah. Uh I remember I went on some charity um projects to in Pakistan went to some
3:16
rural villages and they would say alhamdulillah constantly they they were hospitable. They made
3:24
time for their guest. One went into this old lady's house where her children had left her. She had nothing. It was like you know her room was probably four times the size of this table.
3:34
Everything was in there and she still whatever she had she'd try and offer it to us as guests.
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But she wasn't complaining. She didn't say, "Oh, look at my situation." She said, "Alhamdulillah,
3:45
this is Allah's Allah's as they say." Yeah. Allah wants. And and and that's actually I've seen it
3:51
in other places. I was recently in uh near the Turkish Syria border visiting uh some orphanages
3:57
and charitable projects. And again, you see there were smiles on the faces of of of the widows and
4:03
they're looking after their children. They're constantly saying, "Alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah." So that that level of contentment and those of us who are drowning in I guess luxury in the west for
4:15
certain I can say really do you hear people say alhamdulillah in that way that real where you
4:22
own it and you really believe it and alhamdulillah it's often a okay yeah alhamdulillah alhamdulillah
4:29
you know when people are reminded but that where you own it and you can feel that it's a part of who you are and what we have you know that's the difference I've seen my experience. But yet, Omar,
Uneasy about wealth
4:39
you're uh with Wah and Wah we always see on the side of the buses and on tubes and uh you
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know I suppose your role your job is to make people rich or at least to give people greater
4:53
wealth. Um often I find uh with Muslims we've got this uneasy relationship with wealth. Yeah. Um,
5:01
and there is this sort of belief that gaining more wealth is is a problem. Like just talk me
5:08
through that uneasiness. Is there a a reason uh uh why we should be uneasy about wealth? Yeah,
5:16
because there we all understand that this life is transient and this life is one that we have
5:23
to be accounted for. And so this idea and we also know all of the hadith that support it that people
5:30
will come on the day of judgment who suffered in this life that they will have the ease and the hereafter. So we already know this and we we see it around us actually. Alhamdulillah especially
5:39
now what's happening we have this sense of you know what their next life is taken care of. Yeah.
5:45
And so for us we also tie that well if hardship inshallah results in reward in the next life then
5:52
ease in this world may result in some sort of you know reckoning or accounting for in the hereafter
5:59
and so wealth is one of those things that actually opens all the doors to a lot of other sins anyway
6:05
but it's that comfort that you get in this world and there was the discussion around of all the the prophetam being the last prophet to enter paradise because he was a king and wealthy in
6:17
this life you know and then we also know that the prophet told us that the poor will run the
6:23
poor and destitute will run into paradise so with all of that there's this huge ama that comes with
6:29
wealth and you feel that actually there's a burden or responsibility of so we have that in our psyche
6:36
but that doesn't mean actually that we should see wealth as something intrinsically in of itself
6:43
something that's impermissive or something that uh is harmful, it's neutral. Money is neutral and
6:50
it's a facilitator. Actually, if you go back to the role and purpose of money, it's to facilitate
6:58
either transactions or purchases. What we've done is make money the desire in and of itself,
7:06
not what it can achieve. And that's where the problem lies. Um but at the same time when we
7:13
look at Muslims and I can speak quite comfortably to the UK across also all kind of social indices
7:20
Muslims are lagging behind. So when it comes to home ownership, healthcare, financial literacy,
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education, we actually lag behind. And then we if we were to kind of tie up a few of these issues
7:33
like what's happening in our ability to influence soft power, hard power, there is something
7:39
missing. Um and then when we look at the levers of power, whether it's political, uh whether it's
7:45
social, etc. or military, then there's economic and that's why wealth has a role to play. It's
7:51
just understanding the relationship between the individual and wealth that needs to be kind of
7:57
explored and for people to understand. Right. Um you said on uh various uh bodies uh that look at
8:03
the Sharia compliance of of various investments and finance um uh instruments. Um I want to
8:12
understand like from an Islamic perspective uh does Islam place any arbitrary caps on wealth
8:20
accumulation? Does Islam say that at some stage you should stop accumulating wealth? No, not at
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all. Not at all. It's it's amazing. Subhan Allah. that the understanding of the Sharia the Sharia is
8:34
infinitely just and the Sharia doesn't place any limitations because uh if you think about it uh
8:41
if you cap how much someone can make that's unjust to the person if through their own enterprise what
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Allah has willed for them and they've not gone about making that money in a way that displeases
8:51
Allah or takes anyone else's rights why should you cap it so rather the Sharia does not limit
8:57
in any way how much someone can make. Rather, it talks to the heart of the person and talks to how
9:06
they should feel towards that money and how they should behave with that money. When we look at
9:14
uh the day of judgment and it's asked the first question a person will be asked the son of Adam, their feet will not move until they're asked five questions. So, you know, their wealth,
9:22
their health, etc. The wealth is two questions of the five. How you earned it and how you spent
9:28
it. So how did you earn that money? Making sure it's halal and then how did you spend it? Did
9:33
you spend it in a way that brought you closer to Allah or took you further away from him? So yeah,
9:39
there's there's no cap at all. And so actually it aligns quite well with capitalism with the small C and kind of traditional capitalism that you should make money actually. And Islam speaks to
9:50
productivity and making lots of money and being able to provide for others. The hand that gives is better than the hand that receives. All of these are principles that we have and sometimes
9:59
we can lose that in our kind of discussion around social justice and welfare etc. But actually we're
10:06
pushed to be productive. The prophet sallallaihi wasallam when he saw the person who was begging
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and the prophet took him by his hand held him you know physically said come with me and then
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the prophetam himself cut down a tree with his own hands and he got small bits of wood and he says
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it's better for you to sell this than to ask for money so this idea of being productive and earning with your own hand there was no limit to it and we know of course that so many of the Sahaba
10:33
had huge amounts of wealth we're not even talking little bit about wealth we're talking huge amounts of wealth that the granded Medina would shake when the caravans of man would come you know
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you can imagine so there's there's no limit on wealth at all uh you've used the cword there capitalism and there will be a number of people who'd feel really uneasy about even making a
Capitalism and Islam
10:53
comparison between Islam and capitalism because of course when we observe capitalist society we
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observe these cold these um societies where it's dog eat uh we observe a society where
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the big corporates uh are are running not just the economy but actually uh interfere in in political
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uh decision making. You know these societies have turned America and Britain and Europe into
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uh into dislocated societies where people are living individually and alone. So you know are
11:29
we saying here that there is a there's a fair comparison to make between Islam from Allah
11:35
subhana wa tala and capitalism. No in so much as if we look at the different forms of isms
11:40
whether it's communism, socialism or capitalism. Islam sits beautifully between them. But in terms
11:47
of productivity it ve towards capitalism and traditional capitalism not neoliberalism. So
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it allows that you know no one should interfere in the market you know the invisible hand of the
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market people should be allowed to charge what prices they want it's it's fair you go out and so
12:04
on make your money what's happened now in the what we see of capitalism is actually mutation of even
12:11
capitalism itself and this idea of everything has a value and we've gone from you know
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uh we've actually become a market society that's a different discussion but this idea of Islam term
12:23
being like capitalism from one element from one element definitely in terms of not interfering in the market people being able to make uh money how they see fit etc. So from that perspective,
Islam vs Neoliberalism
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you're saying that there is an overlap uh between um the thoughts of Islam and some of the thoughts
12:41
of capitalism. But how does Islam differ to say neoliberalism? Like what what would you say are
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the features of Islam that does does not sit neatly with a neoliberal way of thinking? Yeah.
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So this idea of um you know the self, we we live in a time of hyperarcism. Everything is
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about the individual. uh and you know your wants and needs and consumptions above everyone else's.
13:06
Neoliberalism completely falls into this idea of whatever makes money right creating money creating
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um you know organizations that will make money and have influence kind of taking influence away from established authority from governments and so on. Uh if we saw kind of those who are old
13:25
enough would see in the thatch area when we had privatization of key utilities. Yes. Islam again
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and this is understanding the Sharia the Sharia is flexible uh in how it approaches at all times and
13:37
all places key utilities wouldn't be allowed to be given away into the control of private
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individuals gas electricity gas water right you know uh these type of things the the government
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would be able to control them they may be able to work with partners etc but they wouldn't just give them away like that and this balance between um being profitable, being productive,
14:02
but also making sure that the weak and poor in society are looked after. And and there's an
14:08
ideology that's attached to it that actually when it's all about yourself at the cost of others. And
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we see the consequence of this. People won't see it as just well having more options to buy things,
14:19
people should be allowed to buy what they want. We see now the the reach of uh Amazon and Google
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etc. that are now playing influence on countries and and they're more powerful than countries.
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Yeah. You know, um and this is the problem when everything becomes a marketplace. Neoliberalism
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speaks to that. We have examples of this in the US where uh prisons are uh privately owned and
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prisoners can pay to upgrade their cells, right? So they can pay to upgrade their cells. uh you
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in certain states in the US um they were talking about actually um paying children to read books
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and and you see what happens in this mindset is everything becomes a transaction and that
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unfortunately has seeped into the Muslim world and into Muslims where and this is the danger actually
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you know it's kind of and this is where we kind of move away a little bit from Islamic finance but look more about the philosophy of it materialism and acquiring wealth and this type mindset. People
15:23
can think or truly believe that they're practicing in religious and still fall foul of it. So when
15:29
you have things like Black Friday or you have certain shops that do their sale, Muslims are
15:35
queuing up and fighting with each other and they wouldn't see anything wrong in it. They'd say we're just getting a bargain, you know, and and and this is the problem because it seeps into how
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we behave and the impacts that we have connected to it then are having smaller families. So we want
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to fund our uh lifestyles and we want to enjoy ourselves and it's got huge ramifications and at
15:57
the heart of it actually I I really believe it's a ribba based system which is why I got into Islamic
16:04
finance or finance generally in the first place. Yeah. Um so so I I want to sort of understand that
Consumerism
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because of course you you are from wahed now. Um, someone may accuse you of of feeding this sort of
16:16
neoliberal way of living, this consumerist way of living, because of course you're trying to help people uh increase their wealth, right? And and engage in in investments where their wealth will
16:29
be replicated and and increased over over a period of time. Like just talk me through that. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, of course. So, there's two elements to it. One is increasing your wealth.
16:39
Yeah. Which for me at least is a byproduct. What we know for certain is that and in Islamically
16:46
there's this principle of uh restricting the harm before uh attaining the benefit. Right? So
16:54
for example if something is haram then you stay away from it and our modern financial system is
17:01
entirely unjust and built upon haram. So when we leave money in our bank accounts, the banks are
17:08
using that money right on the basis of that to lend to other people to create more wealth for themselves and at the same time our wealth is being eroded through inflation. So the Muslims
17:20
are feeding something that's haram but at the same time they're losing out on it. So we need to provide them alternatives. Yeah. You know whether it's any anywhere else we need to find a way in
17:30
which Muslims can withdraw their money from haram. And he he said a beautiful statement. He said one
17:39
which is protected from haram is better than a thousands that you give in charity. Right? So all
17:46
of us focus again you know on growth but actually what we know for sure is that you're feeding on
17:53
fueling something which is impermissible or at least harmful. So protect yourselves from that you
17:59
know and if it grows alhamdulillah that's the kind of purpose and why his mission is actually freedom
18:05
from rebah is to find an alternative to reba and so we do that through various investments because
18:12
that kind of is a is a method for allowing us to do so but if tomorrow another method was available
18:18
then actually we would encourage everyone to do that and there are some discussions around
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dare I say bitcoin we can cover that but for sure when you leave your money in conventional
18:30
institutions they are using it and often they're using it in a directly haram way and then also
18:36
uh in a completely unethical way for for example by funding companies like Elbert you know Barclays
18:43
was known for this and we have money parked in Barclay's accounts they leveraging that to to
18:49
support oppressing our people yeah so so you're trying to educate people to move away from this
Investing in halal
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ribba, this interestbased system and embrace a more halal uh way of investing. So just talk me
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through like how that looks like you know I've got a pot of money that I need I've just left in my
19:10
bank of course you know I've I've recognized that I can't pay uh receive ribbon so it's just sitting
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there but of course every year inflation is cutting into my my funds like if I was to invest
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in a halal way like what does that mean? So if we any form of investment um if we look at if we
19:29
say it's halal there's certain rules that apply to it. One that it has to be free from ribba right so
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it can't contain ribba it can't contain something called which is unnatural risk. So it's a form of
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risk that really is uncont unquantifiable. Um an example would be that the one who's
19:48
uh investing or transacting doesn't know what they're transacting. It can't be quantified and the one who's receiving the money can't quantify either. Historical classically was for example
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I'd say to you, you know, I'll sell you the fish in the sea. I don't have any fish in the sea. You
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don't know how many fish in the sea. One of us is going to you know leave the transaction upset. So it can't contain something which is gambling. So they it can't contain any gambling as well. Then
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uh risk and reward has to be shared irrespective of your economic uh strength. When you come into
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a transaction, you could be the largest corporation in the world and little me,
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right? And we come into that transaction based on what we put into it, we get back from it, right? Risk and reward is shared uh Islamically. Um and so this is kind of the classical rules and
20:38
uh the nature of what needs to or is being transacted about is normally has to be either
20:43
physical or a service. So quantifiable this is the classical way of understanding it. Modern Islamic
20:50
finance has also added a couple of extra rules to it to navigate the financial system. One of
20:56
those is that you can't have more than 5% of your income from investment from impermissible sources,
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right? More than 5%. And if it's less than 5%, you can give that equivalent percentage in charities
21:10
called purifying it. Anything more than 5% you can't invest in it. An example would be um let's
21:16
just say that there is a a meat shop, right? Let's just say a halal meat shop, but for some
21:23
reason they sell some bottles of alcohol, right? Okay. Uh actually, no, no, let's let's do in a
21:28
pure way. There's a halal meat shop, completely halal. All of the products they sell halal, and they make lots of cash at the end of the night. And that cash they leave in a bank that gives them
21:37
interest, right? And so the interest that's earned on their cash in the bank, they declare it as part
21:42
of their income because it's increased. as long as it's less than 5% of you know and it's incidental
21:49
over their entire income then you can invest in that and based on what the percentage is you give that away in charity. So that's how that 5% kind of rule comes into it. Obviously it's often abused
22:00
today. Um and then there's another financial ratio rule which is 33%. You can't invest in companies
22:07
which have more than 33% debt to assets or market capitalization. I know some people may not be
22:15
familiar with these terms. Yeah. But it just means how much debt they have compared to what they're worth, right? And and this is based upon the prophet saying that you can't buy and sell
22:25
debt and they to ascertain is a company actually what are you transacting in if it's all debt. So
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these are some of the rules and this is how you would invest in something in a halal way. Um but
22:39
if you look actually from the kind of the ethos of Islamic uh an Islamic economic or financial
22:47
system, one is that money should be circulating in society, you know, where we're always reprimanded
22:54
for hoarding money. Right. Right. That the one who hoards money and the son of Adam will be not happy if he had a mountain of gold and so on. And this idea of money actually being circulating
23:04
because it can benefit more people. We also know the hadith of the prophet when he was speaking
23:10
to the trustee of an orphan and he says to the trustee of the orphan what are you doing with the
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orphan's money and he said nothing. Prophet said you should invest it or it will be diminished by
23:22
zaka. Then we also look at the rules of zaka and zaka is applied on non-productive wealth.
23:30
So money that's stagnant actually the Sharia is saying make your money move so it can benefit
23:35
as many people as possible. So this is kind of the idea of money circulating in society
23:42
and there's a lot of conversation that's connected to that in terms of what is value, what is return etc. And unfortunately, this is the issue with capitalism that it drives you towards this
23:51
behavior that you're only successful if you've made more money than last year. Irrespective of
23:58
how many people you employ, how many families you're able to provide for, that's not seen as
24:04
value in this strict capitalist system. This is where Islam diverts from it. You know, Islam calls back to justice and looking after the needs of others and encouraging you to do so that
24:15
way. Yeah. Um earlier on we talked about some of the sort of restraints that we can place on the
Extravagance
24:22
accumulation of wealth. We know that there's a famous there's a very well-known Islamic idea of of um isra of of you know being um exhibiting your wealth unnecessarily or or overindulgent
24:35
um uh explain that idea to me please. Yeah. So this idea of um not being extravagant
24:42
extravagant extravagant and um again it needs to be understood in context uh extravagance
24:48
for one person is not extravagance for someone else because the prophet also told us that you
24:54
should show signs of Allah's blessings on you. M the issue comes when people are either a living
25:02
beyond their means or the intention intention behind which they are demonstrating extravagance
25:10
and again this goes back to unfortunately the time that we're living in and I'm sure we'll touch upon this where Muslims are falling foul of scams left right and center because they're being
25:19
sold a lifestyle on social media that exudes extravagance Right. So in this the hull of the
25:29
individual's heart needs to come into play. Does does the person become arrogant by what
25:36
they have? Some people I've sat with some people and they alhamdulillah Allah has blessed them with wealth and it really doesn't make a difference to them. They're humble and yeah and you'll
25:46
see other people who who don't have anything yet they have arrogance and you know they'll
25:51
make sure that what they're wearing or what they have is shown off and this idea of showing off.
25:57
needs to be understood contextually. It needs to be understood applied to people individually like
26:02
Abu Bakr Sadi the famous right we'll get into it like having your garment below your ankles right
26:09
and everyone says oh you know the one who has the long ankle the the long uh cloth it's it's a sign
26:15
of arrogance and the prophet said to him you're not from amongst those people so this idea of
26:21
how it's applied and the rules and actually um when we look at all of finance this comes under
26:28
the kind of if we look at Islam being kind of split into two areas, one is ibadat and one is
26:34
muhamad and muhamad being our social contracts. Now the rule when it comes to ibada is that
26:42
uh everything is impermissible other than that which is permissible. So we can't you know do
26:50
star jumps and say that we're praying our salat is a particular form at a particular time etc. So the rule for is everything is impermissible other than that which is permissible. Is the opposite.
27:02
Everything is permissible other than that which is impermissible. And so it becomes quite difficult
27:08
to definitively say halal and some things are. Yeah. So in finance etc. When it comes to food
27:16
and drink, you can't have pork or dead meat etc. And you can't drink alcohol. Yeah. But there are
27:23
gray areas in between. And so when it comes to things like applying it to people is not very
27:28
easy. You can't say this is haram absolutely. But it comes down to the person really and maybe the
27:36
custom of the society which you live. So if you live out of sync with the people around you like in a very extravagant way and possibly that's isra is it? Absolutely. I mean you got to look
27:46
at the conditions of your people. If we look at the hadith that's possibly attributed to this prophetam about celebrating in front of your neighbors and being mindful of uh giving things
27:57
to your children if their children are you know don't have the means or what you eat sharing it
28:03
with your neighbors etc. This idea of how you're reflected in society is huge. So this idea of is
28:11
is definitely there you know um and we start to see actually in society that it's becoming
28:17
further and further apart. Yeah. You know um so yeah definitely this idea of comes into it um
28:23
and how we apply it but definitely I have to say look people need to be mindful of the intentions
28:30
behind what they're doing and understanding it. We already live if we were to compare ourselves
28:35
living in the in in the west we are in the top 10% of the world globally when it comes to what
28:44
we have just by living in the west even something simple as you know it's amazing um I remember I
28:51
had one of my economics teachers she was from India and she said that when she came to this country that you know what what amazed her the most was that you could drink water from any tap
29:03
Right. And we take this for granted. We really take this for granted. What we have,
29:09
we go to we have fridges. We have electricity ACs in this weather some of us etc. This this
29:15
isn't how the entire world lives. So it could be argued that actually we are demonstrating you
29:23
know extravagance but it needs to be understood as you're saying in context of our custom order
29:28
etc. And so it's understanding it within the realms that we operate in. How much does I don't know if we can call it ethics, but how much uh does our ethical way of living
Ethical way of living
29:38
uh come into this conversation about is about extravagance? You know, we're witnessing on
29:44
our social media feeds a genocide in Gaza and a famine in Gaza. And I remember um the second
29:51
Khalifa Omar bin Katab, he uh stopped eating meat uh when there was a famine in Medina. And
29:58
some people were going without meat. Um, and he did that out of empathy and out of the sense of
30:04
sort of social connection, you know, how can I eat as the khalifa when my people are suffering? Um,
30:11
like how does that feed into this conversation about the way we lead our lives here in the west?
30:18
Yeah, I mean there's so much to unpack really bro like you know this idea of empathy this idea of
30:26
you know the um being one body and when one part of it hurts you know the entire body feels it do
30:32
we really like to what extent does it change our behaviors maybe we feel sad everyone feels
30:39
a little bit sad but does it change anything and so I guess this is and it even comes back
30:45
to the hadith if you see something wrong, change it with your hand. If not, speak out against it. And the last thing you can do is feel it in your heart. So, this sits between kind of just above
30:54
feeling in your heart that actually I'm going to demonstrate, you know, my empathy by at least, you
31:00
know, going through a little bit of what they're going through. But I would say then actually doing
31:05
something a little bit extra on that because you know Shayan is so subtle in that he can make us
31:12
feel we're doing something by choosing the the lesser of the greater actions right you know
31:17
and so first of all empathy as a feeling 100% we should have we as believers and we're disconnected
31:23
and I I really do feel when you travel across the Muslim world that Muslims in the west have
31:29
a certain type of arrogance that they feel that they are more important than the rest of the world
31:37
when it comes to the ummah when uh things affect them in the west that suddenly oh my god right
31:43
and I remember when Trump was first coming in people were really oh my god like Trump's coming and what's going to happen to the Muslims when we had Brexit here and things like this and suddenly
31:52
as if we are the ummah and if we go through some hardship this is the be all and end all the um is
31:58
much bigger than us so we need to break that and a real empathy. How do we show it with our brothers
32:04
and sisters? Otherwise, you know, this notion of um and brotherhood and sisterhood is, you know,
32:11
something I really think about often when I think about people I spend time with and you know, is it
32:16
because they're my brothers or they're my friends? And when do we really display genuine brotherhood
32:23
and sisterhood? You know, and a lot of this needs to be unpacked really because I do feel it. You
32:30
know, we should be showing empathy with our brothers and sisters, but how how do we manifest it? What are we really doing? Um, if on one level that you feel that giving up food uh to help them,
32:40
of course, why not? Alhamdulillah. I think that's good that you even feel that. But then also,
32:45
what else can we do? Don't leave it there, you know? So yeah, there's a lot especially for us
32:51
and I think there's a disproportional amount of uh responsibility on us in the west as well you know
32:58
um I know we're not going into a politics show but yeah that you know after those uh who can make a
33:05
difference in the Middle East for us in the west because it's our governments that are supporting the oppression what are we doing how are we calling holding them to account etc. Yeah. Um I'm
Rizq
33:16
fascinated with uh the conversation we're having about just how we view money as Muslims. And of
33:22
course any conversation about wealth in Islam uh would be inadequate without expressing and
33:28
explaining the idea of risk in Islam. The idea of um sustenance is set by Allahhana tala. Like how
33:35
does that idea that concept feed into our mindset as Muslims? It comes back to really true belief in
33:42
allahel. You know when we talk about and reliance on allahel and if we truly believed and that
33:51
Allah's promise is true when allahel calls himself alaz then the decisions we make wouldn't uh be
33:59
impacted by short-term gains. And I'll explain what I mean by this. You know, if we look, most
34:05
of the UK is probably economic migrants, right? They came seeking food and sustenance. Yeah. And
34:10
then when we come here, we make decisions. Look, we're in the city, right? The financial center
34:16
of the UK, at one point, the financial center of the world, right? Decisions are made all the time.
34:22
And when you enter into it, I used to work here in the city as well. You start to make decisions that
34:28
potentially or not potentially are displeasing to allahel, but you buy into it because you think
34:36
you need to because I'm getting a salary, right? So working forba based institutions um you know
34:43
I need to get money etc. If we truly had this in Allah and this understanding that Allahel
34:50
provides for everyone and as we know the prophet told us that he provides for the birds that go out in the morning and they come back with their bellies full and then when we go back to when the
35:00
prophet told us that the very first thing allahel created was the pen and he and he said to the pen
35:06
right and everything that was going to happen 50,000 years before creation everything that
35:11
was going to happen was written in the sacred tablet the raffles and that the fact that you and I are sitting here today, what we're going to earn, every single penny that we're going to earn,
35:22
every single scent that we're going to earn is written. It's predec. And then just before we're,
35:29
you know, we're in the wombs of our mothers and just before the soul is blown in again, it's
35:34
determined where we're going to die, what we're going to earn. Allah has guaranteed that. And
35:40
that is why Allah says continue again again don't tire yourself chasing this. Yeah. Right. And our
35:47
problem is because we don't have that reliance in Allah. Our im is often you know tested or weak. We
35:55
don't we don't follow that. So rather we try and seek it out ourselves. And you know, again, Subhan
36:02
Allah, not to put it on anyone, but if we take a step back, when we do something like this, we're
36:09
saying that actually we know better for ourselves and that actually what Allah is saying isn't true,
36:17
you know, and that's why it's so dangerous, you know, and I know it's not easy. I know it's not easy at all when people are looking to provide for the family. But I've also seen honestly,
36:25
subhan Allah, people who are of limited means, but they truly fear Allahel in their transactions.
36:34
They won't touch mortgages. They won't entertain credit cards. They won't entertain overdrafts, right? And they alhamdulillah get through. And people who allahel has blessed with wealth,
36:44
they're never happy. They want to get more and more. And they feel that they've got to protect themselves. So this is idea of baraka. This is the idea of baraka. Yeah. And this idea of
36:54
baraka really is what we can to some extent control. Risk is fixed. Risk is determined.
37:02
Baraka is the ability to do more with less. It's something which is moubarak, something which is blessed. Right? And those who have little wealth but it's blessed are much richer from that term
37:14
than someone who has a lot of wealth. And I'll give you some examples just so people understand. I would meet people who have honestly tens, 20s, hundreds of thousands even coming through their
37:23
hands every month. But they were never blessed with the ability to go for Hajj,
37:29
to go for omrah. No way. Their families are in turmoil, right? They in their personal life,
37:35
they have lots of issues. And you will find someone who's a simple believer, and I don't mean that in a disrespectful way to someone who's perhaps got like, you know, a manual job of some
37:44
sort. and they'll have a large family yet they've been for Hajj, they've been for Omrah, they've
37:49
been able to get their children married. Who has baraka? I remember one uh family where a member
37:57
of the family passed away. They had a massive house, huge like you know we're talking, you know,
38:04
you could park a number of buses on the driveway and it was empty. It was empty. Parents were in
38:12
there empty. and someone else who had a very small house but every day there were people there people
38:17
who remind them of Allah people speaking of well whose house was blessed but we would look at the
38:23
bricks and mortar and the size of the house not what fills the house and and that's the
38:28
difference you see when we want to chase baraka and there's a number of ways that we can uh get back I've actually written an article on this oh yeah yeah it's it's called risky business you can
38:39
I wrote a whole article on this about uh ways ways to increase barak and what you do. Uh give us your
38:45
top five. Yeah. One is keeping good relations with your family. With your family with your family,
38:51
especially your parents if they're alive. Keep good relations with your family and your siblings. Second is giving charity. Definitely gives. I've never known a person to become poor by giving
39:01
charity, right? Rather you will see that the one who gives the most, Allah gives them the most, you
39:06
know? So give charity. Of course, uh underlining all of this is stay away from the haram. Stay
39:11
away from haram. You can't have any blessing in something that is that's haram. So stay away from haram. And then also on top of that um going for omrah or hajj if you can. If you can't go
39:22
for omrah like we'll end up going for holidays everywhere and then visiting Allah's house you
39:28
don't do. And the fifth one um what can I say? Um is actually um giving up your time for others.
39:39
you know we have we live in such a transactional world and this impacted us what we I spoke about
39:45
earlier that today we want uh value or return for anything that we do and it's impacted us
39:51
as Muslims impacted our dawa scene for example as well and you know when we were younger you
39:56
see so many volunteers today well what do we get out of it you know um and so giving up your time
40:02
for Allah's sake you'll see that Allah will bless you in it somewhere else we try and tie up those
40:08
transactions together but not that blessing that comes from Allah will be in somewhere else but we don't we can't join the dots at the time so this is it you know living life greater
40:19
than for yourself um what do you understand to be the hookum of someone who works for a bank
40:29
okay it's it's a difficult question and I can't answer the question as myself as Omar but what I
40:34
will do is answer it based on the views of the scholars I've spoken to across the board. So
40:39
these largely fall in kind of three camps, right? One camp is it does not matter what you do for
40:46
the bank. You can be the cleaner or the security guard for the bank. It's haram. Absolutely haram
40:52
because it's a ribbed institution. Because it's a reba based institution and you're enjoining in spreading evil and supporting evil. Right. that view uh I've seen um not as many scholars based in
41:06
the west have said that right so that point on the other hand I've also heard from some very senior
41:12
scholars that it doesn't matter what you do in the bank as long as you do your job with honesty
41:17
and integrity right then we get somewhere in the middle actually which is as long as you aren't
41:25
in one of the direct roles that supports ribba So, and then there's a hadith of the prophetam
41:31
which says that the they're all equal in sin. The one who pays it, the one who charges it,
41:36
the ones who witness it, and the ones who write it down. Right? So, in an organization, a bank, these will be lawyers, accountants, the finance department, every the sales staff, etc. If you're
41:46
not in one of those roles, then it's okay for you to work there. So, IT technician, IT technician,
41:52
compliance and things like that. But actually, the scholars say, well, it's still an organization
41:57
that's not doing good. So it's better to get out. And I just want to caveat this cuz people may this
42:02
often happens. They may be working in banking and they feel this pressure and you know everyone who works in banking has this thing in their heart anyway. They want to get out. They just have
42:11
to be sensible about how they make their move out because the Sharia doesn't come to harm you uh further right in the sense for some people if they were to leave their personal family situation
42:21
would be such that it causes more harm. So they need to manage it. But the least that every single
42:27
person who works in a conventional financial institution should do is hate it with their
42:32
hearts. They should hate it with their being. And then at least they have something to present to allahel that look we worked there. We were in need but we didn't want to. And they should be trying
42:43
to find a way out, you know. And unfortunately unfortunately I see this because I was I ended
42:49
up in banking. It wasn't my intention. I end up there and I was trying to get out and obviously I
42:54
work for W here then I have a number of people who work in finance and they all want to kind of oh
43:00
you know can we can we work can we get a job there we want to leave banking but nobody wants to take
43:05
a hit on the money that they're getting nobody wants to sacrifice you know they you know and
43:12
that's a problem our our community um wants it all you know and this is why the bay unfortunately is
43:20
the destin nation of choice for for for Muslims. Now it's, you know, halal Disneyland, isn't it?
43:26
According to some, right? So, you know, you you want to go to the best restaurants, you want to
43:31
uh, you know, eat all of the the the food that make it halal. You want to enjoy yourselves and all of these types of things and you don't want to sacrifice for making things better and and banking
43:42
etc. is one. If you have an opportunity to go then you should really cuz for certain that money
43:48
is tainted you know and this is the thing that's scary actually because look every single person
43:57
their what they have whether they are extremely practicing or not is their ability to make dua.
44:04
This is the one thing that every single person and the most the person who's going through the most difficulty, who's probably the furthest away from Allah, they know they still have that root,
44:13
that communication with Allah. But the prophet tells us of the person who's broken,
44:18
having traveled, who's disheveled, who's hungry, all of these things that normally
44:23
when you make dua that Allahel answers them. The traveler, the one who's hungry, and so on.
44:29
And he raises his hands asking Allah. And allahel rejects his dua. He says, "What you earn is haram.
44:40
What you feed yourself with then becomes haram. What you clothe yourself with then becomes haram.
44:45
So how can I answer your dua?" And some people say that this is on the day of the day on which no dua
44:52
is rejected. Wow. Right? And the currency of the believer is dua. Imagine being cut off from dua.
45:01
This is why all of these things are so important. Then we ask why we don't have any baraka in our times and you know why our parents could afford to have just one person working provide for the
45:13
whole family and provide for families back home. And yet today the the idea of the nuclear family a
45:18
nuclear family the husband and wife have to work. So we don't want too many children so then we can give little Abdul a good life as well. and we want to go on all the holidays and we can't afford a
45:28
house and there's no baraka in our time because of the way that we earn our money. Some people may be
Responsibility of wealth
45:36
surprised to hear you speak like this because you're an Islamic finance guy. I guess that's the uh that's the impression we get from outside and and um you know you're in a sense asking us to
45:47
have you know to have a social responsibility towards our money and to think about how we
45:52
utilize and spend our money like explain explain that explain that please okay so I don't know I've
46:01
got this label of being the Islamic finance guy um it's not something I necessarily
46:06
attribute to myself I I I'd rather speak about Muslims and their relationship with money,
46:12
right? Islamic finance has now become an industry of its own. Uh and I'll I'll go into that. I think
46:19
the responsibility of understanding your wealth, making sure that you're not harming others in the
46:25
uh in getting that money which is really important. This idea of I speak about justice
46:31
but you know actually not committing oppression and wealth becomes such an easy way to commit
46:38
oppression when you take a pound from somebody or a dollar from somebody that you have no right
46:45
to that's darkness on the day of judgment and we look in just most of our families we look
46:54
how many disputes there are over wealth over some strip of land that no one's going to live on and families aren't speaking to each other and cousins grow up not knowing each other going back
47:04
to wealth. So my thing is actually look first of all and also understanding that we as Muslims if
47:11
we truly believe in allahel and his law as being the best for all of humanity and all
47:18
of mankind then we know that the rules within it are what's best. So if we want to see Islam ola,
47:25
if we want to see Islam as uh benefiting all of mankind, we need to go by what Allah has
47:30
told us to stay away from and encouraging what Allah tells us to do. And so ribba and financial
47:38
oppression is so heavily reprimanded by Allah that when allahel says in the Quran that you are at war
47:48
with Allah and his messenger andbas says on the day of judgment you'll be asked to choose your
47:57
weapon to fight Allah and his messenger. May Allah protect us from that. And then when you look and
48:03
this is not just Islamic this is the point when you look at conventional perspective Woodra Wilson
48:08
the American president said banks are worse than standing armies. When you look at you know the
48:14
Gulf War and the the kind of run-up to it what was it? US was in in a financial disaster and suddenly
48:20
war comes around the corner because it makes money. If you look at the establishment of the the French bank state bank France that was because Napoleon needed to fund the war with the British.
48:31
So you see this heav heavy heavy uh relationship and correlation between the acquisition of wealth
48:39
and committing oppression let alone how most of the developing world which unfortunately overlays
48:46
with the Muslim world has been controlled is through financial measures. So uh when I was
48:52
younger I used to think aid was free money. you now realize actually it's not free money
48:58
but rather it's it's compounded interest you know um the president of Nigeria he said if you were
49:06
to ask me what the worst thing in the world is he said it was it's compounded interest we owed
49:13
um I think it was like one uh $1 billion it's now become $7 billion that they've paid and they still
49:21
haven't paid back the debt example I worked at one point in an investment bank and I saw that this
49:27
investment bank had lent Bangladesh and Nigeria in 1979 $1 million. Bangladesh and Nigeria $1
49:35
million and this was in 2005. Both countries had paid back in excess of $25 million and they still
49:43
hadn't paid back the loan. And that's just one form of economic oppression. Then you look at most
49:50
investment banks have a department that look at which countries have economic surplus and they say
49:56
which mechanisms can we use to take that economic surplus away from the those countries right then
50:03
you look at all of the trade rules everyone's upset about tariffs right now but they've been applying trade rules to to the Muslim world to oppress them you know we're right now I think
50:13
recently they're discussing Egypt being reliant on uh Israel for water right uh back in the 70s you
50:20
know Egypt used to produce its own wheat and the US said to him stop producing that start producing
50:27
cotton so Egyptian cotton everyone talks about but then what happens there's a dependency now on the US for wheat which is a staple food so there's huge amounts of oppression that are pushed through
50:38
economically that then creates real oppression on the ground you know um I was recently subhan Allah
50:46
in again I was in Turkey near the Syria border And I went in to see a family and they they must
50:51
have had about uh I think they were five girls children. Three of them were blind. Three of them
50:56
were blind, you know. Subhan Allah. Young young young children, young girls. And the operation
51:01
to fix the eyesight was a couple of dollars. The family didn't have it. Wow. You know, and all of
51:11
these things are interconnected. So yeah, I mean when I talk about um Islamic finance because I see
51:17
really rebed to it being one of the main levers for oppressing our ourselves and our brothers and
51:27
sisters and an individual level, societal level and a global level which is why we need to push
51:34
back against it. So earlier on you gave us the principles of uh what Islamic investment should
Where to invest
51:40
look like on a practical level then you know I've got this pot of money how do I where do I uh put
51:46
this money where would you advise me put this money right so this isn't financial advice I have to say that um but I would say look first of all before you go into that it's also understanding
51:57
your own risk appetite this is really important um how much of that money are you able to lose
52:06
You know because all investments carry some level of risk right this is why when you see regulators
52:12
they insist you have this statement capital at risk which is a proper Islamic statement actually if you don't see capital at risk then worry that it's actually it's a loan so capital at risk so
52:22
look at your risk appetite how much money can you put aside and um lose if it happened to it the
52:29
other part of risk appetite is also understand that well actually what do you actually want from on this. Is it a long-term investment? Do you want it to be low risk and low return? Or are you
52:40
happy to take more risk and you can get a higher return? You know, uh do you need access to that
52:45
money immediately? And the reason I'm saying this is how you'd kind of go through it or are you okay for it to be locked away for a few years? Um and the other big thing I would say is that make sure
52:54
whoever you're dealing with is regulated, right? because it gives you some recourse to actually
53:00
getting uh your your money back if things go arai. So once you work out all of this like what's your
53:06
risk appetiti how long you want to put the money away for then you have a number of products you can go to um so something like equities which is investing in uh stocks and shares in in companies
53:17
listed companies either as individual companies or as a basket of companies put together that's
53:23
normally seen as high risk right uh but it's available then you have uh certain asset classes
53:30
like gold and gold has been doing really well it's seen as a what's called a safe harbor asset when lots is going on in the financial markets, gold always seems to do well. And just kind of
53:39
um anecdotally when I look at gold cuz most years I'll probably do like a zakat workshop and I kind of benchmark it. 10 years ago the NAR value was around 1,400 and this year I looked at
53:50
it and it's around £65,000. So it just shows you like how it's gone. Yeah. But um and then there's
53:56
other types of investments. Something called suk which is a fixed income which is like a bond. Uh
54:02
I I really dislike them. Uh yeah. Yeah. I I I really dislike Suk because for me it's um uh
54:12
I'll just say I think it's hidden ribba. Really? I think it's hidden. And this is the problem with Islamic finance that there's a lot of structures that out there that mimic conventional products
54:21
and that they haven't uh met what we wanted we'd want them from an Islamic perspective. So and then
54:28
uh you can also invest in other stuff. You see when it comes to crypto advice against investing in most cryptocurrency um if you invest in say for example Bitcoin some people everyone talks about
54:39
this you really have to understand from your risk appetite the risk that you're taking on
54:44
uh and how you engage with it and I guess we can talk about that on another day but there are risks associated so there's a number of different assets you can look at um but just go through this
54:54
process how much can you lose what do you want is it short-term long-term do you need access to
55:00
any point am I dealing with a regulated company and then you can put some money in accordingly
55:06
whoever you go with are there equivalents to wah out there where once you've you've made your
Wahed work
55:11
money you've made alhamdulillah a good amount of money that uh it advises people on how to
55:17
use that money for the good of our social causes for the good of our community for the good of our
55:23
ummah um you know because of course that for me because at the moment alhamdulillah the Muslim
55:29
community gives a lot of money in charity. But of course, charity doesn't solve every problem and it's a quick fix probably for for most problems. Um is there a a way by which someone who's who's
55:41
not informed about projects that are available uh they can be informed about about this? Yeah. So
55:48
this thing about strategic philanthropy giving our charity in a strategic way is so important. Um the
55:55
best person I know he's also been on your show is Shabir on this mah. Yeah. is very good but for the
56:00
average person um there isn't anything out there um I know national which I'm also a part of looks
56:06
at doing things longterm taking a long-term view and a strategic view on stuff but from an advisory
56:12
perspective there isn't and I guess that's down to all of us having more of these conversations
56:18
and the leaders in our community coming up with some sort of road map for Muslims in terms of how
56:23
we should spend money and then our community needs to support it as well unfortunately
56:28
And there's this there's this challenge when it comes to charity that because it's a spiritual
56:34
act, most people kind of leave it in that realm rather than moving into a strategic realm with it.
56:44
So I need to give charity for whatever reason, gives him saddaka, give him my zaka. So I'll
56:49
just do it and I'll float it rather than actually that wealth, what's the best use of it? What's the
56:55
best way? you know, we look at how do you from an investment perspective, you always look at how do you get the best returns on that money. From our charity perspective, we're not looking at it like
57:04
that and we really should be. Um, as an example, when we look at um even what's happening in Gaza,
57:12
um I would argue perhaps South Africa taking them to court is probably one of the most significant
57:19
elements of opposing what they're doing. But how many people would have been willing to give
57:25
charity to fund that case? Yeah. Right. And and we need to start thinking like that keeping it
57:34
within for zakat within the rules of zakat. But actually and this is something else that really kind of gets me when when we talk about finance. We have made zakat the largest portion of our
57:44
charity. And it's completely wrong. Zakat should be the short or smallest part of our charity. And
57:51
what that's done, it has forced charities to try and push everything through zaka when actually zak
57:56
has its rules. But Allah has blessed us to give through whatever we want. That's unrestricted.
58:03
Yeah. You know, so we need to be more. We need to be thinking about how we fund uh long-term
58:09
projects. I mean, even politically, if you look at now in the UK, there's discussions about banning
58:15
halal me, right? banning halal meat, you could probably get a lobbyist or a firm for £150,000.
58:26
Do you think that our all of our halal meat shops and suppliers getting together to try and do this,
58:35
they can't come up with 150,000? But when I local shop will come out with that. Yeah,
58:41
there you go. Yeah. But when people who are in this because I put this to someone in the industry and alhamdulillah he's very good but he was like they're too reactive and nobody nobody
58:51
wants to do it. Wow. Okay. What what do you say to them if they can't see it? And especially now
58:58
especially with what's happening and we've seen when we aren't in certain spaces when we aren't
59:03
part of certain conversations when we aren't uh pulling levers on soft power then we can't
59:08
make a difference to hard power. Why are we not investing in these or paying into these issues?
59:14
Wealth isn't the issue. Honestly, you know, um I I I did some research into the top 10,000 companies
59:21
globally. The top 10,000 companies globally, of which only 6% of them came from the Muslim world,
59:29
right? 6% came from the Muslim world, but around 36% of the funding for those top 10,000 companies
59:35
came from the Muslim world. So, we have the capital. We have the capital. we have the capital it's just not being deployed in uh in in in a just way I would even say strategic I would
59:46
say not even in a just way right so there is something theoretically called the Muslim pound
Muslim pound
59:53
but we just haven't organized ourselves in a way in which we can uh we can practically manifest uh
1:00:00
the power of our money yeah absolutely absolutely and we need to start think of it as a circular
1:00:05
economy I know in the US they looked at uh within different groups uh how much money circulated. So
1:00:13
uh within Jewish groups I think it was nine or 10 times before it left really. Uh within uh
1:00:21
black groups it was less than one. uh for us as Muslims, I'm not sure what that number is because
1:00:28
we don't maybe through the boycott, you know, we've spent more, but also connected to this,
1:00:33
I think, is how we behave. You know, you you touched earlier upon ethics as Muslim
1:00:39
businesses where we are, uh the type of businesses that we have, how we behave with each other,
1:00:45
the Muslim economy, definitely the Muslim pound needs to be supported. We need to have our wealth
1:00:51
uh in a good way uh circulating amongst Muslims empowering Muslims. We need to be empowered as
1:00:58
believers. We have to be empowered because if not like we're knocking on the doors of our oppressors
1:01:05
for small tokens of justice. What a low state that we're in. Imagine asking the one who's oppressing
1:01:12
you and beating you to show you mercy. That's what we've left with despite us having numbers,
1:01:18
despite us having wealth, despite us having intellectual capital, you know. Um, so we do
1:01:24
need money circulating. And I would say to those Muslims who are in business and those who purport
1:01:30
to take the money of and the wealth of Muslims, you have an ama towards that wealth. That's a right that your brother and sister has over your wealth. That wealth has a right over you, right?
1:01:41
We shouldn't just like be easy with it. We should fair our contracts, the that we make with each
1:01:47
other that we fulfill them and we should have this you know uh we spoke earlier about seeking wealth
1:01:55
actually you know it's not the seeking of wealth but when I look at the top 10,000 companies when I look at the top 100 companies there's not a single Muslim company in there the only one is Ramco and
1:02:06
that's that's got nothing to do with intellectual capital right so where are our large organizations
1:02:14
Our problem is and the people I know who set up good businesses as soon as they have the opportunity they want to exit, make money, have an easy life. But they should be thinking, wait
1:02:23
a second, we can employ people. We can have good morals in our business. We can have places where
1:02:29
our sisters feel comfortable and safe to come to work. We but we don't have those aspirations. We
1:02:35
would just want to make money and cash out. And then we wonder why we aren't pulling those levers.
1:02:41
aren't the ones who are pushing the the the dial on the narrative. Yeah. You know, when we look
1:02:47
at Google and what they're doing providing, you know, uh airspace, right, you know, from cloud
1:02:53
cloud services to IDF, you know, and and this is an issue. Everyone will be using a Google device
1:02:59
of some sort. Everyone will, you know, have a Google email, etc., Amazon, Microsoft. Where
1:03:06
are alternatives? you know, so we need to we need to push our money in and then take responsibility
1:03:13
for the wealth that we have to then deploy in the in in the best way. And how important do you think
1:03:18
it is for Muslims especially here in the West to invest in their motherlands, invest in Bangladesh,
Investing in Muslim world
1:03:25
in Pakistan, in in countries where their um uh their fathers, their grandfathers would have come
1:03:32
from. uh but as well as that investing in you know countries like Syria and Afghanistan that are that
1:03:38
are developing that are trying to uh stand up on it on their own two feet like how important is it
1:03:44
that we not only uh circulate the money within our local communities but we actually do something we
1:03:51
provide a service we invest in in businesses and and jobs in those countries definitely I mean um
1:04:00
I don't think necessarily that you need to invest in your motherland so to speak. It's just cuz it's
1:04:06
an easier I guess people have relationships there and there's a form of attachment but um you know taking aentric view on this definitely we need money flowing into the Muslim world to
1:04:17
help build and develop the Muslim world and I see that uh those of us who have benefited from living
1:04:24
in the west uh the amount of um intelligence and experience and privilege we have both the UK, US,
1:04:34
Canada, right? Having studied here, having worked for these large firms and large corporations and
1:04:40
have the experience now, people who've been in it for 20, 25, 30 years, what are we doing with that?
1:04:47
Do we continue to help them grow their bottom line profit or do we look at helping uh develop
1:04:55
the Muslim world? And we should be unashamed in saying actually we should invest. There's no lack of talent. It's amazing. Subhan Allah. you know at wide we uh supported a Palestine startup fund
1:05:06
so around 5 million to help Palestinians come up and it's amazing you look at the types of projects that they're doing and it's all over the Muslim world in Syria the ingenuity that you see
1:05:16
but they just don't have the opportunity you know so I definitely think we should be uh supporting
1:05:22
businesses and people and those with ideas why we set up something called wah ventures specifically
1:05:28
for this idea that people in the Muslim world if they have a great idea that they can also get access to capital from the Muslim world because ultimately if our funds are flowing into companies
1:05:39
in the west then whatever they do we're part and parcel of it we at wah that we we invest in equity
1:05:46
funds and they've got these companies in them that we and now these companies in some shape size or
1:05:52
form will be aiding oppression you know so there is that the other thing I would say though when We
1:06:01
it's not for every single person to invest in all of these countries cuz the Sharia is uh amazingly
1:06:08
nuanced in that it will always look to prevent people from harm. So the one who doesn't have any
1:06:15
recourse to you know getting their money back or seeking justice and they can't lose the money then
1:06:21
I wouldn't advise them to invest. These countries are often high risk because of who you're dealing
1:06:27
with, how you're dealing with them, etc. If you have relationships there that will help protect
1:06:33
you, not from business, cuz there's always going to be a natural risk in business, but for someone behaving unscrupulously, then for sure uh you should do it. But if you don't have that,
1:06:42
then I wouldn't advise it because you could lose that money, you know. And and that's the thing I'm always cautious of saying to people, look, be aware of what you're doing. Go into it with
1:06:51
both eyes open. Do you have any connection? Um because we see unfortunately forget in the
1:06:57
Muslim world in in the in the western world so many Muslims fall to scams. Yeah. We fall as a
1:07:04
much higher proportion than other communities by the way. Really? Yeah. I have a friend who works for the financial budsman. Uh and he tells me that there's a high proportion of Muslim cases
1:07:14
that come to him because we're gullible when someone says inshallah. of course people going in the masid they trust them and two we have less financial literacy and number three unfortunately
1:07:23
I would say that we have an element of greed right we want to shortcut and so when someone comes and
1:07:28
we've seen uh cases where 18 million 25 million 30 million taken from the ummah the wealth of Muslims
1:07:38
there I remember one incident with one coin came around a little while ago and uh she was a single
1:07:45
mother and she goes I lost all of my savings. Yeah, I lost all of my savings. I don't know what
1:07:50
to do. And she sees the guy now. He's driving around in a big, you know, Mercedes Jeep. But he goes, "Oh, it's business." You know, and they have no calms in taking the wealth of of those.
1:08:00
And I fear I fear for these people because the the ones that they've they've oppressed and they're
1:08:06
and they're going to raise their hands to Allah. I was dealing with one case um of a person who's now
1:08:12
moved to Dubai, surprise surprise, where he was selling investments as a Ponzi scheme. And he took
1:08:17
the money of a uh a widowed woman who was like close to retirement. She'd saved about, you know,
1:08:26
uh some money and she was looking after a disabled son and that was all of her life savings, you know. And she was just like, you know, I curse him. like what is that money going to do for him?
1:08:39
What's it going to do? That's poison that he's feeding his children, you know, and our community,
1:08:45
we should be protective whether it's our money or not. I just say this to everyone who's listening.
1:08:51
We should feel a sense of towards our wealth, whether it's our neighbors, anyone in our
1:08:56
community, we should feel protective towards that wealth that it's not utilized or wasted or taken
1:09:02
advantage of, you know. And again like the Sharia calls to all of this. The prophet sallall alaihi
1:09:08
wasallam he forbade people from the market buying goods from people who came from the city who came
1:09:15
from outside of the city. So they'd come from the villages. He forbade the people from the city in the markets to buy their goods on the outskirts of the city. He said let them come to the market
1:09:25
so they can get they will know the real price and they can get a fair price for it. There was that
1:09:30
level of attention to not taking advantage of people. And how are we do you think that uh in
Dawn and money
1:09:37
the Muslim the faith space in the religious space we're overcommercializing our our faith you know
1:09:46
where it when it comes to conferences and speakers and and just the way we we tend to manage the dawa
1:09:52
scene I'll give you an example I mean I was at a conference recently and alhamdulillah we've got a a group you know very active young youth team uh that are connected to to the podcast and
1:10:03
um you know Adai came up to them and said you know and the first question he asked was um like
1:10:10
how much money do you make out of out of thinking Muslim man it's a not for profofit we don't make any money out of it but that was the first thing that came into his mind when when seeing these
1:10:19
active people that they could only be doing this for for money um you know I I'm uneasy about that
1:10:24
I mean I don't know if you share that that feeling I I really do um I see the argument that we need
1:10:35
to pay for the conferences, we need to pay for facilities and you know it starts on you know the
1:10:42
scholars said it's completely permissible for someone who teaches Quran to be paid right so there's payment but now this level of commercialization has seeped into everything that
1:10:56
we do and that's the problem. It's no longer a uh a reward or a payment for them you know whoever
1:11:05
it is doing some form of act but it's become the reason why they do it. One is after the fact and
1:11:14
one is why. Okay. So if uh I know at one point there was a there was an organization that used
1:11:20
to have a lot of speakers that you know they'd employ them and they graduates from uh you know Islamic universities and they think I need to get there so I'm making lots of money I can be on the
1:11:29
speaker circuit right you don't think that messes with your intention. You know money corrupts.
1:11:37
This is why the judge he's not allowed to receive gifts. the Islamic judge is not allowed to receive
1:11:43
gifts because and and said pay them well. Pay them well so they don't they don't become susceptible
1:11:51
to this stuff. I know even myself if I've been in a financial or relationship with someone where
1:11:57
they've let me money. I do go out of my way a little bit more. I am more amunable to them.
1:12:02
I do try and do all these things. So now if you think about our events or our courses or whatever
1:12:08
we're doing, how do we behave towards them and is it the expense of everyone else? And is it
1:12:16
that money buys you access? What happens to the average person? Yeah. You know, so uh definitely
1:12:22
and you see in some ways it's quite stark and it's not just to say having a a large conference where
1:12:28
you have speakers coming and you charge for that. I think that's not that's not the issue because I know that you know the price will be low and everyone has access to it. Yeah. But it's in
1:12:37
all of the subtle stuff like paying for slots in Ramadan for people to fund raise right sounds
1:12:45
weird but before massid would say okay whoever needs help other mass to come they can raise money. Now it goes to the highest bidder. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, we were having this discussion in
1:12:56
last Ramadan that you got to pay for we'll take a percentage of what you earn on the night, right?
1:13:04
umbas being held, mashid is being held to ransom because there's a visiting speaker and giving
1:13:12
the hudba wasn't part of his contract and he sat there and until they agreed to it, he wasn't going
1:13:18
to give the hudba, right? What does it do to the person where everything becomes a transaction? And
1:13:25
then the fact that you were asked this question, you know, why put in the heads of volunteers that
1:13:33
it's not of value unless you're getting paid for it. We've messed up what value is. Yeah. You know,
1:13:39
subhan Allah. And that's the problem. And you see it seeped in to how we do everything. We mean charities themselves do amazing work but then they run in certain ways that they become
1:13:52
highly corporatized and so everything becomes about how much money you can raise irrespective
1:13:58
of how it's raised and how it's deployed and what you do for the pursuit of that money you
1:14:04
know and and and what we teaching our children this is what I'm talking about we become a a market society you know it's um and how we treat things. You know, there was a study done with
1:14:16
um a nursery school and um what they said was that parents were constantly coming late to pick up their children and they applied a fine, a late fine. And what happened was more parents came late
1:14:29
because they felt that then because they' paid for it, it justified them being late. Yeah. And so you
1:14:36
see in our behavior as a community if you start to think that you need to pay uh for certain types of
1:14:43
activity or to get access to speakers or to be part of you know this organization what does it
1:14:50
do to us doing things you know and it permeates everything that we're doing become we become
1:14:58
more of a selfish society and this goes back to that neoliberalism you know rather than being a
1:15:03
selfless society and the prophetam despite being able to to to hoard wealth if he wanted to he'd
1:15:10
say to his companions give me what you have and they'd throw it at him you know but he instilled
1:15:16
in his followers this idea of selflessness the money will come and you know when we we hold
1:15:24
money in our hearts when we should hold it in our hands and you really see that you know uh someone
1:15:30
this is another example subhan allah a person who owns multiple properties, a brother went to
1:15:36
him and said, "Do you have somewhere uh that a uh you know a single mother with children can stay?
1:15:42
She'll pay rent, but it's going to be a little bit discounted." Person said, "No, uh this is the price that I charge for rent." But he's somebody who will see themselves as charitable and they'll
1:15:52
give charity in their own way, you know, and that's the issue. We we we lose that and that's
1:16:00
the hardening of our hearts really and this is why despite all of Islamic finance despite all of
1:16:07
the rules and everything that I look at when you look at ethics and justice and all of these things
1:16:14
you know the the scholars say ask your heart there's a hadith of the prophetam where he said,
1:16:26
he goes, "Righteousness is good conduct and wrongdoing is that which waiverss in your soul and
1:16:34
which you dislike people finding out about. And how many things do we do today that bite at us and
1:16:43
we're ashamed to tell others, but we continue to do them?" And what's scarier is after a while the
1:16:50
niggling and the biting stops and you know that's unfortunately the the route that we're taking and
1:16:56
we've gone down. So this commercialization of uh Islam it's it's here it's here now you
1:17:05
know whether it's uh going for Hajj the types of prices you need to pay um and just everything has
1:17:13
a price on it when we use Islam to sell products right and I mean that in a way that you know
1:17:21
um the there's certain products they say we'll give a percentage to charity right to to lure
1:17:28
you in to to buying it, you know, and it's scary. It's really scary because we're using Allah's name
1:17:34
and that comes with responsibility, you know. Are we producing products that are equivalent
1:17:40
or better quality? No. But are we just saying for Allah's sake then buy it? And so the Muslim
1:17:45
community is hugely charitable amazingly. we do it because again for us it becomes a spiritual
1:17:52
action and then we get taken advantage of as well individually and collectively. So we need
1:17:58
to bring it back. Uh alhamdulillah some scholars I spend time with are amazing. I see this they
1:18:04
uh refuse to um take payment for anything. I remember I'll give one example actually and I I'll
1:18:12
mention him because he's here in the UKad when uh years ago I was working and I organized training
1:18:20
for people in the city. So we were all here and they used to have Jumai in different buildings and um in the day I was working with a number of different people. I was working at EY as a firm
1:18:29
and um we'd ordered like lunch and the manager paid for it and he goes, "Oh, give me the receipt cuz I'm going to expense it." So he expensed it. It must have been maybe 4050 for someone
1:18:38
like him. There's nothing. And I remember Shaham coming down delivering the session for us. And I tried to give him £5 for his tube ticket. And he got really angry with me. He goes, "No." And
1:18:50
I've seen that consistently with how he is and you know where we travel and he takes things. There's
1:18:55
no to call anyone out. I'm not really not, you know, calling anyone out or saying that they're, but I've seen a consistency with him. And then you can see that stuff uh manifests itself in
1:19:08
in people's hearts and also that a person can't be corrupted like that, you know. Alhamdulillah. So,
1:19:15
yeah, a lot for us to think about. I think this has been a really refreshing conversation
1:19:21
actually. I I didn't expect it from a finance guy, but I I'm I'm so um so honored really to
1:19:28
have spoken to you about about this subject, Omar. Jazak, thank you so much for your time today. For
1:19:34
having me, please remember to subscribe to our social media and YouTube channels and
1:19:41
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