Business in Islam

The following are some of these basic conditions business in Islam:

1. Things sold and money offered as their price to be lawfully acquired. The things sold and the money to be offered as their price should both be lawfully acquired and clearly specified. This condition demands that the goods sold should have been lawfully obtained. One has no business to sell goods which one has stolen or which one has acquired in a fraudulent manner. nor should one purchase anything with the money which one has accepted as illegal gratification or has aceuired in some other deceitful way. This condition holds the buyer and the seller responsible for lawful possession of the goods on the partof one and of the money on the part of other.
2. Goods not to be sold before obtaining their possession. The Holy Prophet (may peace be upon him) has warned the Muslims against indulging in forward transactions which means selling goods before obtaining their possession. "Whoever buys cereals shall not tell them until he has obtained their possession," says the Holy Prophet (may peace be upon him). According to Ibn 'Abbas, what applies to cereals also applies to other categories of goods. On another occasion the Holy Prophet (may peace be upon him) has said: "Bargain not about that which is not with you."
3. Goods to be bought in the open market. Goods and commodities for sale should go into the open market, and the seller or his agents must be aware of the state of the market before proposals are made for the purchase by the buyers. The seller should not be taken unawares lest the buyers should take undue advantage of his ignorance of the conditions and prices prevailing in the market.
4. No trade and traffic in things, the use of which is prohibited by Islam. A Muslim can trade in those goods and commodities only the use of which has been declared to be Halal (lawful). There can be no trade and traffic in things the use of which is proliibited by Islam. For example, there can be no trade in wine, swine, dead bodies of animals and idols. A devout Muslim merchant would not even traffic in thin and transparent stuff for ladies because the use of such stuff by ladies is unlawful. One cannot sell the carcass of an animal. He can, however, flay its skin which can be used for making shoes and which can therefore, be sold, but not the flesh of the dead animal. What is true of the usable skin of animals is also true of the tusks of an elephant.

Prohibited forms of Business

1. Monopoly business. As monopoly means concentration of supply in one hand, it leads to exploitation of the consumers and the workers, it has, therefore, been declared unlawful by the Holy Prophet (may peace be upon him). Gigantic trusts. cartels and monopolies should not exist in the Islamic society. The monopoly-dominated economic order betrays lack of harmony between private and social good and is, thus, a negation of the principle of maximum social advantage which the Islamic society sets out to achieve.
2. Speculative business basd on selfish interest. Speculation means buying something cheap in bulk at a time and selling it dear at another and, thus, controlling the whole market to achieve personal gains. A close observation will reveal that speculators are primarily interested in private gains regardless of the larger interest of the society. These speculators try to create artificial scarcity of goods and commodities and thereby create an inflationary pressure on the economy. As the poor masses have to pay for this. Islam has condemned such speculative business.
3. Interest transactions. All transactions involving interest are forbidden in Islam. Some people find it hard to submit to the injunction prohibiting interest, because they think interest and profit earned in trade are similar. Capital invested in trade brings an excess called profit; invested in banking it brings interest. Why should one excess be considered lawful and the other unlawful? They fail to take note of the basic difference between the two. Trade involves risk of loss. Also in its case, it is not only the capital invested that brings profit which is equally the result of initiative, enterprise and efficiency of the entrepreneur. Hence its rate cannot be predetermined and fixed. Moreover, trade is productive. A person reaps a benefit after undergoing labour and hardship. It creates conditions of full employment and economic growth. It will also be noted that trade acts as one of the dominant factors in the process of building up civilisation through co-operation and mutual exchange of ideas. The spread of Islam and Islamic civilisation In the Far East has been mostly due to the efforts of Muslim traders. Interest has no redeeming feature at all. The fixed rate of profit which a person gets from a financial investment without any risk of loss and without augmenting it with human labour creates in man the undesirable weakness of miserliness and Shylockian selfishness and lack of sympathy. In the economic sphere it initiates and aggravates crisis.
   Rightly, therefore, has Islam strictly prohibited all transactions based on it or involving it in some form or other.
   Advancing money on interest, keeping deposits in a bank for the sake of earning interest, or getting concessions in rates of goods or commodities against advance payments of price, mortgaging and utilising an income-yielding property against a certain sum,to be returned in full when the property is redeemed and investing money in a trade against a predetermined and fixed rate of profit-are all unlawfnl business transactions because they involve Riba (interest) in some form or the other.
4. Transactions similar (in nature) to gambling. The Arabic equivalent to gambling is Maisir which literarily means "getting something too easily", "getting a profit without working for it". The literal meaning of the term explains the principle on account of which gambling is prohibited in Islam. Any monetary gain which cornes too easily, so much so that one does not have to work for it, is unlawful.
   The most familiar form of gambling amang the Arabs in the days of the Holy Prophet (may peace be upon him) was gambling by casting of lots by means of arrows drawn from a bag. Some were blank and those who drew them got nothing. Others indicated prizes-big or small ones. Whether one got anything or nothing depended on pure luck. unless there was fraud on the part of someone concerned. The principle on which objection to gambling is based is that you gain what you have not earned, or lose on a mere chance. Dice, lottery, prize bonds and betting on horse races are to be held within the definition of gambling.
5. Munabadha and Mulamasa. Islam recognises barter trade subject to the injunctions of the Qur'an and the Sunnah. In fact, Islam has closed all doors of dishonesty and deceit in business dealings. It has prohibited all forms of transactions which admit of fraud in the least degree. It has impressed on the traders that defective and worthless goods should not be given in exchange for good ones, and if there is a defect in the goods sold it must be pointed out and made manifest to the purchaser. The Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) said: "The buyer and the seller have the option of cancelling the contract as long as they have not separated; then. if they both speak the truth and make manifest, their transaction shall be blessed, and it they conceal and tell lies, the blessing of their transaction shall be obliterated".

More information : http://www.iium.edu.my/deed/hadith/muslim/010_smt.html