Seven Key Advice for Muslim Business Owners
By Abdullahi Yusuf
To earn the trust and support of Muslim consumers, business owners must go beyond profits, ensuring their practices reflect Islamic values, honesty, and community responsibility.
Here are seven essential tips for growing a successful and ethical halal business:
- Make Profit The Secondary Aim: The first goal of a Muslim business should not be cashing in on a Muslim market. It should be pleasing Allah and establishing halal as a way of life. Seeking profit is not a bad aim, but it should be secondary. By making Allah the goal and implementing Islamic rules of honesty, truthfulness and good behavior with customers, Insha Allah, any Muslim business is bound to boom.
- Be Truthful And Honest: The prophet has said the honest and truthful businessman will be in Jannah amongst the Prophets the truthful and the martyrs. Honesty and truthfulness are essential in this business. And when it comes to Muslim businesses, it means building a relationship of truth with customers, which cannot be done with lies and deceit.
- Be Open To Scrutiny And Criticism: This may be a bitter pill to swallow, being ready to have your product, services or business scrutinized for cleanliness or the “Halalness” of products indicates a willingness to work with the customer. This serves to build trust. Remember ultimately, we are all responsible to Allah. A halal business is notjust one person’s profit making machine. It is also an institution of the Muslim community, but most importantly the Quran and Sunnah’s standards
- Maintain Cleanliness: This is essentially important for halal grocery or eatery stores where the processing of the products could be cumbersome. Not being careful of this means not only loss of customers, but also possible sickness from germs. Similarly, our outlook should be smart enough to make us attractive on the field. This cleanliness, by the way, does not just apply to those areas of a store or customer will see. It includes equipment and storage areas as well. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “Cleanliness invites towards faith (Iman) and faith leads its possessor to paradise.” (At-Tabarani).
- Aim For A Higher Goal: Don’t just aim for one successful business or get fixated on a product. Think big. Improve the inventory of your store, the types of items in it, and strive to find ways to improve regularly on your service(s) and profit margins. As well as, look into the possibility of pooling resources within the Muslim community, with other shareholders, partnership and other halal sources of funds to expand the business.
- Collaborate with Others in the Market: This can be very difficult. Finger pointing, accusations and nasty rivalry often characterize Muslim businesses aiming to market the same product. But this is not the way a Muslim economy should work. Brotherhood in the Ummah cannot be forgotten. Consider forming an association of Muslim retailers or distributors that can sit down together, share experiences, and learn to cooperate. This cooperation could, on the long run, benefit your business, the consumer and in turn the Muslims businesses.
- Avoid Selling Haram: Beware while they are more “Muslim” businesses sprouting up, not everything they sell is Islamic. This requires efforts on the parts of Muslim business owners to wipe out the HARAM and ensure halal in their businesses. It is not difficult to find Muslim owned businesses selling pork, alcohol and pornographic magazine. The name of doing business; its evil. There are halal products and services Muslims can engage in without Incurring Allah’s wrath.
Success in Muslim business is not measured by profit alone, but by the service and halal compliance of the enterprise. By following these seven principles, Muslim entrepreneurs can grow thriving, ethical businesses that benefit both the community and their own spiritual standing.
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