Yes You Can Be Rich

You can be rich. Everyone wants to be rich. And the fact is, no one can stop you from being one.

The Prophet SAW once told all Muslims that the biggest portion of strong income is generated from trading activities.

In short, it can be well comprehended that Islam encourages its followers to do business. Any businesses, as long as we follow the Islamic guidelines in doing it.

The guidelines are simple, though.

Just make sure that our businesses are free from what we call as al-riba'.

To some, the definition of al-riba' is whining. To me, it is not. If only you put some little efforts to find more about it.

Al-riba' means 'excess or increase'. To make it easier, it can be defined as the 'effortless profit or that profit which comes free from compensation or that extra earning obtained that is free of exchange'.

Under the New Economic Plan (NEP) put forth by the government of Malaysia, we have seen abundance of young Malay-Muslim entrepreneurs joining various fields of businesses. I got quite a number of friends from all over the country who are running their own businesses. This is something to be proud of, really.

Anyhow, my concern goes out to those businesspeople who failed to understand the concept of al-riba' and they are actually engaging the elements of riba' in thier businesses, unintentionally.

Some people reached out to this issue politically. But I personally do not see the connection between this particular outbreak with politics.

Under the umbrella of the Ministry of Finance, the government of Malaysia are providing monetary funds to all young Bumiputras entrepreneurs. The funds may not be that big, but the money has helped many of them to enter the world of lucrative businesses.

There are several payment methods offered by the government. All of them are free from the elements of al-riba'. Therefore, it is VERY unreasonable for the businesspeople operating under the various monetary schemes provided by the government to take the blame off from themselves.

Even if we put religion aside, engaging with al-riba' will never help us to do good business. In fact, it will inadvertently hushed away your potential clients. I was one of the potential clients who have hushed. Really.

Let's take a look at how many Chinese businesspeople designed their businesses.

Most of them rather go for volumes than one time big profit. They may not understand al-riba', but the way they bring it on is in tandem with this concept.

For those who are doing business, do remember that most of your modern clients are not plain stupid. They got brain, they think a lot. And you are not alone in this industry. If you choose to charge them unreasonably, you choose to lose them as well.

Yes you can be rich. Anytime.