Three Questions....

[Parosi_Lurker]

Prologue: My current job involves work with a large Natural Resources Company(read metals). This company has been making a lot of money of late thanks mainly to the boom happening in Asia, primarily China since they have invested a lot in their Infrastructure. There are a number of M&A going on in the field of Copper, Zinc, Gold etc in the world market today since this is the best time in a long time where "old economy" has made money. My clients have mines in South America and Africa amongst other places and the old economy boom has generated a good strong inflow of funds for these countries(read South America and Africa in particular).

Introduction: Ever since the Iraq war started the price of oil has been shooting through the roofs. The price of crude oil/barrel went skyrocketing from nearabout 30-35$ to 75-80$. Today it lies around 60-62 if I am not mistaken. If you would follow the big Oil companies you would hear of records being broken everywhere, Shell, Texaco, BP all are minting money. But thats only one side of the story. The other side is that of Oil rich countries. Countries like Iran whose 80% of export is made of crude oil, while for Saudi Arabia is 90-95%. No wonder today you have the likes of Ahmedinejad and Hugo Chavez shouting with all their might. I am sure they are genuine people but make no mistakes a large part of their outburst can be owed to the strength of Petro Dollars today.

Which brings me to my questions now.

Questions:

1) If earning interest is considered haraam in Islam what does one infer about selling a certain thing(in this case oil) at a higher price to make more money? If that is halaal is it haraam for a poor man to put his measly savings in a stocks and try to make some money?

2) What has Pakistan received from their fellow ummah countries amidst the rising oil prices? Has say Saudi Arabia came to the rescue of Pakistan with a "Okay we shall sell you oil are pre-Iraq war costs?"(bear in mind that this itself would bring the cost of petrol down quite much. Has Iran categorically stated that while they were not averse to making quick bucks due to Iraq war they would not do so at the cost of fellow brothers? Every Pakistani I know(the ones that actually live in Pakistan) have mentioned the rising costs, specifically of Petrol. Since oil is generated almost exclusively by Middl Eastern countries(save for Venezuela and Russia) why is the situation so bad for Pakistan?

3) What do Pakistanis think of this situation?

Epilogue: I would probably like to be a fly on the wall and watch as people debate, simply because I would like a Pakistani view on a Pakistani issue/problem and not an Indian view.

Please let me know your opinions.

xxxxx

[Zechariah]

Bump, good thread but somehow missed out on the responses.

[Jayed]

1- Selling objects is justified only when the profit is obtained at a general, decent trend. You may obtain it slightly above the normal trend. I.e. The'yre selling Zechariah (lol) for a pound, so I'll sell him for a £1.20. That's reasonable. Islam shall allow that. But selling items at I dunno 400% is manslaughter and haram.

Hadith mentions that amongst those who shall taste fire are those merchants who sold goods at high inflations for no reason.

Secondly, we cannot help all with this ruling. The poor man's decree has to be decided by the state; i.e. the Islamic state.

The stock things have alternatives. Business is simple. Stock is a bit hit and miss and gamble. Deals with interest sometimes and is wrong. The best (from hadith) man is he who works with his hands (meaning Writes, or modern day types or manual labour). The stock thing is a lazy method of gaining excessive money out of GREED and lax. If that is so, It is unlawful.

I am not a mufti, but I am studying Shariah, since I have an exam tomorrow I'll leave it at that answer for now. If you others take it up..or correct me, no problems as I am a student; not a grandmaster.

If you find any reasons why I am wrong please correct me with reason. Don't ananlogise everything with logic as religious answers are beyond logic.

[MCMLXXXII]

A poor man is entitled to put his savings in a stock and invest it for higher return, there is nothing wrong with it, provided that the company he invests in conducts halal business. On the other hand, day trading is speculation and is akin to gambling which is haram. People should buy stock with a serious intent to invest in the company and reap the benefits from that investment or incur the loss as well.

[Boys_played_well]

Maybe it missed out on responses because, like many other issues, there is no good 'Islamic' answer as to why earning interest is haram.

[Asim2Good]

I don't think you could call it "earning iterest" but this could fall in "profit". and profit in business is Halaal. as thing or oil you are selling to person, ho know the price at which he is getting and it's up to him that he wants to buy or not.
Interest would b (in oil case) that Iran or Saudi are holding the oil (even though there is demand) so prices of oil goes up and then they ll sell oil that will b haram.

as for selling oil to Pak on cheaper price, I think (not sure though), in past these used to give oil at cheap price to Pakistan but when they felt alot of corruption from Pakistani side they stoped to give this service. and secondly let me mention that once prices of petrol goes up in Pakistan, it never went down evn after world market prices goes down a bit. petrol prices only going up in Pakistan jsut recently (a month or 2 month ago), they reduced the petrol price and that's because elections are coming

[Wazeeri]

Maybe it missed out on responses because, like many other issues, there is no good 'Islamic' answer as to why earning interest is haram.

Maybe you need to read up on the topic before commenting.
Have a look at the many interest related topics we have discussed on the forum.
I will re post one of contributions on an accountancy forum submitted about a year ago (when I find it).

[Wazeeri]

Bit first on Interest in general

Originally Posted by Wazeeri on other forum Morals, rights and wrong have no material assumptions from which we can deduce rulings on whether something is right or wrong. Quran and the prophet(pbuh) have thus been sent to us to differentiate between the two. We have two kinds of people with no knowledge here. 1. The ones who say Interest is haram and there is no further debate even though they haven't read into it. 2. The people who consider themselves modern and too advanced to listen to what the Quran says and when they do they will argue about changes with time...etc. They tell people to go and learn about the Quran before saying Interest is halal or Haram but they are reluctant to do so themselves. Riba is not just related to money. If you use just X to make more X than that it is Riba. Interest makes money from having money thus perfectly fits into the description. By it's very nature the economic system based on interest makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. Having money makes money and not having money takes more money. This in total contrast to the islamic economics, which believes in the circulation of wealth through the whole population. 100,000 people are set to go bankcrupt this year here in Brittain alone due to credit cards. Half the world is in poverty because the poor countries cannot get past paying the interest. The 10 richest men in the world are richer than most of the countries. This is not fair. People now a days feel that interest based banking is inevitable in the field of trade and industry. So they claim that only Usuary is Riba and commercial interest is Halal. This view isn't based on Islamic knowledge but the concept I mentioned above which rules that progress without such a system is unimagineable. Commercial interest was around in the time of the prophet as different tribes used to give loans to each other and earn interest on them. Tribes in those days used to act like modern day businesses where everyone in the tribe used to carry out some task in whatever goods the tribes were famous for producing. The interest between the tribe is recognised as Riba. By giving away an interest based loan what you are doing is securing your asset and the income from the asset but passing on the risk of a loss to some poor and desperate individual or business. We do not need interest and the enormous expansion of islamic banking has proven this. The muslim scholars are divided on the issue of inflation I see it as thus - Personal loans are never so big for inflation to ever come in play as usually personal loans are made on a very small time frame. - Commercial loans cannot be made in accordance with Islam thus instead of giving out loans the banks should invest in projects and earn back from the profits. This will reduce the number of risky investments made and will force further development of business plan analysis. As the banks will be making an investment they are also taking the risk of inflation so the borrower doesn't need to take that into account. Books recommended:- Meezan banks Islamic Banking, Dr Muhammad Imran Ashraf Usmani Issue of Interest, Maulana Mufti Muhammad Shafi

[Wazeeri]

Originally Posted by Parosi_Lurker 1) If earning interest is considered haraam in Islam what does one infer about selling a certain thing(in this case oil) at a higher price to make more money? If that is halaal is it haraam for a poor man to put his measly savings in a stocks and try to make some money?

Parosi

Selling any commodity at any price is considered Halal s long as you have not involved yourself in raising the price of the stock by hoarding or by any other nefarious means.

Surah Al-Baqarah Verse 275
Those who eat Riba will not stand (on the day of judgement) except as a person beaten by Shaitan leading him to insanity. That is because they say "TRADING IS ONLY LIKE RIBA" where as Allah has permitted trading and forbidden Riba.

Investing in common ordinary shares is completely in line with Islam. Preference shares and most bonds are against Islam. Trading in stocks is an issue where there are differences of opinion. Arguments can be made for Trading to be considered Halal or Haram.

2) What has Pakistan received from their fellow ummah countries amidst the rising oil prices? Has say Saudi Arabia came to the rescue of Pakistan with a "

Pakistan has in the past received petrol for free from Saudi Arabia especially in the early days but now Pakistan's pro-western stance has lead some of the Arab allies away.

I think it is good for Pakistan that we are no longer getting handouts. This will help Pakistan build.