By
Ibn Abdillah As-sudaisiy Al-Iloori
If you are doing one business or the other, with the advent of social media, there is a great opportunity to reach out to more customers to make incredible sales.
However, if proper care is not taken, desperation may set-in and religious and moral values could be compromised in exchange for worldly dreams through followership and potential customers on social media. It is no longer hidden that people can now do anything to go viral and seek fame and business connections. I am sure you understand what I mean. Our timelines on social media these days speak for itself. Fame is dangerous and it is not something to be sought after for any reason. People hardly forgive the mistakes of famous people. In fact, it is like some people derive joy in seeing a famous person being dragged and ridiculed online. So, why seek fame while you know you are not perfect? If you are famous , your mistake will go as far as the population of your followers and even beyond. May we not be humiliated in this world and hereafter.
Consequently, Muslims in business online or offline must always abide by Islamic standards in marketing and promoting their businesses. I think this is one of the objectives of Business the Way Allāh Wants it (BTWAW) initiated by our sister Kaothar Afolabi Olaniyan. May Allāh reward her efforts and make this year’s edition a success. It is about placing Islam first in whatever we do. I want to urge the organizers to please work more on sensitizing Muslims (especially our sisters, and especially those on hijāb and niqāb) on halāl market strategies and advertisements. To be truthful to ourselves, what we see these days online are disturbing. Advertisement is halāl but we still need to follow Islamic guidelines on it. Muslims should not advertise like non-Muslims. Muslim men and women are not like other people.
Those who are not Muslims may not care about those they use as their brand ambassadors whether directly or indirectly. As for Muslims, we cannot deliberately choose to use just anyone as our business ambassadors. Our brothers, Toriola Isa Oladimeji and Oba Abdulazeez are advertising their brands without going out of the boundaries of Islam (Sunnah). Alfa Shehu is also doing well. We should not throw caution to the wind out of desperation to sell. This is already happening, especially among our high profile sisters with sunnatic identity. It is a great fitnah. Though we must mind the way we make our corrections to avoid creating hatred amongst us, but the corrections must be made. That is why we are the best of nations ever raised for mankind. As my brother Eseoghene Al-Faruq Ohwojeheri said yesterday, if no one is speaking against a clear evil, we are doomed. It is wrong to fight anyone for saying the obvious truth. We should rather admonish ourselves to do the naseehah with wisdom.
A Muslim can transact business with anyone regardless of faith and discipline. But in doing this, we have to be careful so that we do not promote directly or indirectly other than Islam or anything that Islam forbids or frowns at. For instance, if a “celebrity” in any of the industries sharī’ah prohibits, such as music, movies, alcohol, nudity, obscenity in the name of comedy etc. voluntarily promotes my business and it goes viral drawing more customers, I have done nothing wrong and there is no blame upon me if I do not have hand in the process that led to it. But I should be at least be bashful enough not to share the content by myself or praise or eulogize him or her because of the personality involved. There is no way I will share it or praise sing him or her without promoting him or her indirectly.
A Muslim merely selling to a non-Muslim or public evil doer is not the problem. It will only be a problem if he or she stage engineers him or her to do so or he or she associates with him or her with the intention to promote his or her business. As Muslims, we are not free to associate with just anyone without minding what they are upon or what they represent to the bigger world. Our Islamic image must be protected. We must draw a line between mere business interaction and promoting public evil doers in the name of advertisement.
There was a time I accompanied a highly respected Imām from abroad to visit a globally recognized scholar. The scholar has a lot of followers but there are some controversies surrounding his da’wah. He welcomed me and he took a video with me holding one of my books. After leaving the place, I felt so reluctant to post the videos. I can’t even remember if I posted it on Facebook or not.
In another scenario, a very good brother took one of my books to a celebrity Alfa and a comedy skit maker. Both of them took pictures with the book and the brother sent them to me but I didn’t find it easy to post them because of the personalities involved. I really understand that the urge to post these things is not easy to control. We are all human beings. But if one weighs the options properly, one will understand that not posting them is better than posting them. If they post the videos or pictures by themselves, it is better.
Therefore, as Muslims, we should understand that Allāh can elevate us in our businesses if He wills. We need to fight the desperation in us to promote our business just anyhow without minding Islamic guidelines. We should have contentment. Allāh says:
وَّيَرْزُقْهُ مِنْ حَيْثُ لَا يَحْتَسِبُ ۗ وَمَنْ يَّتَوَكَّلْ عَلَى اللّٰهِ فَهُوَ حَسْبُهٗ ۗ اِنَّ اللّٰهَ بَا لِغُ اَمْرِهٖ ۗ قَدْ جَعَلَ اللّٰهُ لِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدْرًا
And will provide for him from where he does not expect. And whoever relies upon Allah – then He is sufficient for him. Indeed, Allah will accomplish His purpose. Allah has already set for everything a [decreed] extent. (QS. At-Talaaq: Verse 3)
May Allāh guide us all aright.
© Ibn Abdillah As-sudaisiy Al-Iloori
