The Principles of Islamic Marketing by Baker Ahmad Alserhan (Author)

The Principles of Islamic Marketing (Hardcover)

by Baker Ahmad Alserhan (Author)

Chapter 1

Dubai Burj Khalifa: Ramadan fast 'lasts longer high up'

 
A drawback of the high-life?

Muslims living in the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, should fast longer during the Ramadan holy month, Dubai's leading clerics have said.

During Ramadan, Muslims are supposed to not eat or drink between dawn and dusk.

"Burj Khalifa is almost one km (0.6 miles) high, which means people in higher floors can still see the sun after it has set on the ground," Ahmed Abdul Aziz al-Haddad told Reuters.

He said they should break their fast two minutes after those on the ground.

Another Dubai cleric, Mohammed al-Qubaisi, has been quoted as saying that people living above the 80th floor should fast for an extra two minutes, while those on the 150th floor and higher should wait for three more minutes before eating or drinking.

The 828m- (2,716ft-) high Burj Khalifa has 160 floors and was opened in 2010.

The clerics say there are ancient precedents in Islamic law.

Mr Qubaisi said that under such rulings, people living on mountains should also break their fast after those at ground level.

Ramadan began last week.

Social media offers last keffiyeh factory lifeline

By Howard Johnson BBC News, Hebron

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WATCH: Social media has given the last Palestinian factory to make the traditional keffiyeh scarf a second chance

Hirbawi Textiles is located on a nondescript road on the outskirts of the Palestinian city Hebron.

The Turkish model

The Turkish model

A hard act to follow

In many ways Turkey’s Islamists seem to have got things right. But it took them a long time to emerge from the country’s army-guided secularism

Aug 6th 2011 | from the print edition

Advice from Erdogan (right) for Mustafa Abdul Jalil, chairman of Libya’s rebel council

PALE, bespectacled and polite, Bekir Berat Ozipek, a young professor at Istanbul’s Commerce University, is no street-fighter. But he was excited by the heady atmosphere he experienced on a recent trip to Egypt. He and two fellow Turkish scholars went to a conference at the University of Cairo where their ideas on civil-military relations were keenly gobbled up.
Then late one night, on the eve of a big protest, they went to Tahrir Square, the heart of Egypt’s uprising. They loved what they found: young people directing traffic, exuberant songs and slogans, a joker imitating ex-President Hosni Mubarak. Then they dived into a restaurant, where their chat about Egypt’s political system was joined by youngsters at the next table, as well as the waiter. Mr Ozipek thought he was living in the era of Voltaire.

In this section

• Uneasy companions
• »A hard act to follow
• Dreaming of a caliphate

Reprints

A few days earlier another Turkish-Arab encounter took place. Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey’s foreign minister, was winding up a visit to rebel-controlled Libya when he decided, to his minders’ alarm, to go to the central square of Benghazi, which like its Cairene counterpart is called Tahrir, or Liberation. As the crowd chanted “Erdogan, Turkey, Muslim”, he brought greetings from his prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and told them: “We have a common future and a history.”

From North Africa to the Gulf, the region seems to be going through a Turkish moment. In years past Turkey’s spotty democracy was often cited to prove a negative: the Turkish case (along with Indonesia’s and Malaysia’s, also with reservations) showed that Islam did not pose an insuperable barrier to multiparty democracy. But nothing much flowed from that observation—until the Arab spring. Turkey is now being studied by Arabs as a unique phenomenon: a movement of moderate Islamists, the Justice and Development (AK) party, has overseen an economic boom, boosted the country’s standing and shown that the coming to power of pious people need not mean a dramatic rupture in ties with the West.
Whatever the flaws of the Turkish experiment, it is clearly true that Turkey under the AK party presents a more benign picture than many other versions—real and hypothetical—of Islamist rule. The country has gained influence in the Middle East by keeping cordial ties with Iran and standing up for the Palestinians. But there is no suggestion that it will leave NATO or cut diplomatic links, however strained, with Israel. Life has been made easier for pious Muslims in ways that secular Turks dislike; but so far, at least, Turkey is a long way from any Iranian-style enforcement of female dress, let alone a clerical class that has the final say in all big decisions.
For Western observers of the Middle East, an evolution in a Turkish direction—towards relative political and economic freedom—would be a happier outcome than many others. So is there any reason why the Arab countries, having passed through their current upheavals, should not live happily, and Turkishly, ever after?
In fact, there are many reasons to be cautious about expecting Arabs to follow Turks. Turkey’s moderate Islamism did not evolve overnight. Its emergence, and taming, took a long time; it depended on many countervailing forces, including an army which was firm in its defence of a secular constitution, and was strong enough, at least until recently, to deter any imposition of Islamic rule (see article).
Both in Turkey and Egypt veterans of political Islam have seen a mixture of repression and limited participation in politics—but in Egypt the repression was harsher and the opportunities to practise democracy fewer. Albeit with fits and starts, Turkey’s Islamists had already learned some political lessons when they took power in 2002. And compared with many other politically active armies, Turkey’s has played a disinterested role. After taking power in 1980, the army moved fairly soon to restart multiparty politics and launch a free-market experiment. It did give a sop to Islam by introducing religion in schools; but that was a modest concession, made from a position of strength.
Compared with its Arab counterparts, Turkey’s secular order has deep roots, going back to the creation of a republic by Mustafa Kemal in 1923. Modern Turkey’s defining event—the defeat of a Greek expeditionary force dispatched with Western backing—was also the starting-point of a ruthless reform effort whose declared aims included “fighting religion” and ending the theocratic backwardness of the Ottomans. For decades afterwards, memory of this victorious moment was enough to fill secular nationalists with confidence, and put pious forces on the defensive.
As a largely devout Muslim nation, Turkey never ceased to produce charismatic religious leaders, but they had to adapt to the realities of a secular republic or else face prison or exile. To this day Turkey’s political and legal system bears the marks of years of army-guided secularism. Even Turkey’s Islamists remain “children of the republic”, says Berna Turam, a scholar at Boston’s Northeastern University.
Guidance from Fethullah Gulen
These days the religious teacher who wields most influence over the Turks is Fethullah Gulen, who lives in America and forms the apex of a huge conglomerate that includes NGOs, firms, newspapers and college dormitories in Turkey, plus schools across the world. Whatever the ultimate aim of Mr Gulen, his talk is Western-friendly: he mixes the vocabulary of Sufism with language that is broadly pro-business and pro-democracy.
In contrast to many Arab Islamists he tries to please Christians and Jews. Turkish sceptics say the Gulen movement is more fundamentalist, and less liberal, at its hard core than its benign external face would suggest. The fate of several journalists who have tried probing it, and found themselves prosecuted or jailed, lends weight to that belief. People who criticise the movement can face nasty smear campaigns.
But followers of Mr Gulen claim that meetings they held in the 1990s had a huge influence on Mr Erdogan, persuading him to abandon the idea of an Islamic state. Mr Gulen made an unusual break with the government after last year’s killing of nine Turks by Israeli commandos who swooped on a ship taking supplies to Gaza. He said it was partly the Turkish side’s fault: the flotilla should not have defied Israel. Thus, when Mr Erdogan faces pressure from pious mentors, it is not to be more radical but rather the opposite.
Another feature of Turkish Islamism is the number of thriving businesses with ties to the Gulen movement. Among the drivers of Turkey’s expansion—the country’s GDP per head is three times that of Egypt, with a similar population—are provincial entrepreneurs. It is now commonplace to stress the AK party’s roots in the new Anatolian bourgeoisie, and its appeal to the consumers of the country’s new-found wealth: people who mix Muslim piety with a taste for expensive cars. These groups set limits to the AK party’s ambitions; like most rich folk they favour stability. In the Arab world there are middle-class Muslims who look with envy at the confidence of their Turkish counterparts.
Ibrahim Kalin, an adviser to Mr Erdogan, posits another difference between AK and political Islam as it emerged in Egypt and Pakistan in the 20th century. Even when pretending not to, the latter movements always dreamed of a powerful Islamic government, using the tools of modern statehood, like universal education, to impose a Muslim order. AK, by contrast, lives comfortably in a world of “lighter” states, where other agencies, including NGOs, the private sector and academia can play a bigger role.
In AK circles it is common to hear such postmodern talk mixed with nostalgia for the Ottoman era, when each faith ran its own system of education and personal law. Ali Bulac, a columnist, argues that citizens with civil disputes should consider Muslim arbitration: he says that could be combined with retaining the secular penal code, a cornerstone of the republic. Muslim democracy alla turca is already an unusual creature, and is still mutating.

Marketing: An Islamic Perspective

World Journal of Social Sciences Vol. 1. No. 3. July 2011. Pp. 71-81 

 Marketing: An Islamic Perspective Md. Mahabub Alom* and Md. Shariful Haque** The purpose of this paper is to formulate and develop a marketing definition and its framework from Islamic perspective. In present business world, market and globalization are becoming the first truly world creed which binds all corners of the globe into a world-view and set of values. Here marketing practices are playing a vital role in raising the standards of business conducts worldwide. But the roots of it are secularism, value-neutral materialism, Social-Darwinism, Utilitarianism, and ‘rational economic man’ oriented. The spirits of these isms is selfishness, persuasion of profit, and want maximization. But in contrast, Islamic world-view comprises religious values, cultural values, and universal values which can be accepted and respected universally and can visualize a consumer oriented marketing culture which can ensure a balanced synthesis of both the material and the spiritual dimensions of life which emphasize to maximize the welfare of the world and the world hereafter and can establish fraternity and socio economic justice. This descriptive study will attempt to provide a brief review of conventional marketing literature at the same time it will formulate and develop a definition of Islamic Marketing and its framework based on The Holy Quran, ×adÊth and Islamic Literature. 

Ramadan 1432 and Islamarketing

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