Sharing Success- Fair Trade Commerce for a Better World

Sharing Success: Fair Trade Commerce for a Better World

Opening Invocation

As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu.

Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah. Praise be to Allah. There are no partners, no associates. Thank Allah for the blessing of all the angels that come with all of you. You brought angels into this arena and inshallah Allah let us taste some of the pleasure of angelic presence.

The Quranic Foundation of Fair Trade

Alhamdulillah, what I wanted to talk about was fair trade and extending that meaning beyond the confines that have defined it in the dominant western discourse. The Quran tells us not to consume the wealth of people falsely, unjustly, vainly. Batil is everything that's empty. It's what's not good. So it's the opposite of Haqq which is truthfulness, sincerity, reality, what is real.

So it says don't consume the wealth of people unjustly:

"Let your trade only be trade that is mutually content." In other words, each side is content with the actual event of trade and commerce. This is an incredibly important verse - all of the Quran is important but this verse is so central to what's happening right now globally and why we're seeing so much turmoil in what are called the markets, these global markets where wealth is consumed unjustly, people's wealth is stolen, misappropriated, given to people without the right accountability and this is happening in many many places. And so Allah tells us that tijara, commerce should be fair in other words, each side should be pleased with the event that's happened, that's transpired.

The Divine Balance in Creation

Allah also says in Surat ar-Rahman:

- "He raised the heavens and placed the balance, that you not transgress in the balance." Historically, our scholars identified these verses that are between the heavens and the earth. They're between, if you look at Surat ar-Rahman, it opens with heavenly, celestial discourse and then it talks about this balance and then it goes

- "and We placed the earth for all living things" but between those is the balance.

This refers to all types of balance. Allah has given an economic balance and this is historically how they understood it: the prohibition of cheating people in the marketplace which is related to this balance between the celestial and the terrestrial. And Allah reminds us that the earth was placed for all creatures. Al-anam are all living creatures, it's not just the human beings. Some of the commentators say anam comes from nom which is

all things that sleep because sleep is the gentle tyrant. It's what Allah has given us to remind us that He is

(Quran 6:18) - that Allah is overpowering, overwhelming His servants. The fact that we have to sleep at the end of the day and our lives are rounded by this little sleep.

The Historical Marketplace and Justice

So the idea of just commerce and balance is very important in the Quran. Historically in the marketplace, and this is unfortunately no longer the case because of digital scales, but historically you had scales in the marketplace so people could actually see the justice. If you bought a pound of fruit, the merchant would put a pound weight on the scale and then he would put the fruit on the other. And in Islamic tradition they used to always tip the scales to be on the side of the buyer, not on the side of the merchant, because the Prophet said:

"May God have mercy on a man or a woman who is forbearing, who is forgiving, who is generous when they sell or when they buy." And I've seen this many times when I was in Fes or places in Morocco. They would do this, they would tip the scale, they put an extra date to tip the scale just to show that you're getting the extra because they wanted that extra of ihsan.

The Modern Economic Crisis and Muslim Absence

We're living in a time of incredible economic injustice and that injustice is because we have an unjust economic system. Economics now has become a necessary science to understand. You have to understand the basics of economics to be living on the planet that we're living in because it's affecting all of us, it's affecting our lives. We have to understand the false dialectic that's been created between the so-called Keynesian and monetarists, this left-right dialectic as if there's no other alternative to these two approaches to economics because the Muslims have an alternative but unfortunately we've been absent from the discourse.

Islamic Contributions to Commerce

Even though much of what is beneficial in western commerce came out of transacting with the Muslims. In fact, "average" is from an Arabic word because merchants, they used to sell and you can look this up in Chambers' etymological dictionary or Google it. Average is an Arabic word because merchants used to have a type of takaful when they would send a ship with goods and if goods were destroyed, a portion of the goods were destroyed, they would take the average and all the merchants would share in it. It was a type of insurance. So this tariff is from the Muslims because we forget that our religion is a religion of commerce.

The Prophet's Training as a Merchant

I reflected deeply at one point when I was studying the seerah: why would the Prophet ﷺ be a merchant before he was a prophet? Why was he a merchant? Because Allah could have made him many things but He made him two things. He made him a shepherd in his youth and He made him a merchant in his adult manhood. He made him a shepherd because all prophets are shepherds because the essence of being a prophet is caring for a flock.

It's caring for people in a way that the shepherd does not want any harm to come to the flock. And who does the shepherd guard the flock from? The wolf.

The Blessing of Commerce for Society

The reason, I believe, the reason that the Prophet ﷺ was chosen to be a merchant was because the merchant is the most beneficial human being in human society. There is no one more beneficial to human society than a merchant. Everything, the chairs that you're sitting on are from commerce, the clothes that you're wearing are from commerce, the glasses that you're looking through if you're looking through glasses are from commerce, the fillings in your teeth are from commerce, the medication that's keeping your blood pressure low right now is from commerce. Everything that is beneficial to the material well-being of the human being is from commerce.

Commerce and Character Development

But there's another secret in commerce. Commerce teaches you good character because the most successful merchants are the ones with the best character. You go back to people who treat you well and that's why historically they used to say customer is king, the customer is always right. A merchant shouldn't get angry because even if the person buying from him is making him angry, he'll lose the sale if he starts getting angry because the person will just walk out. And so it actually creates good character

(Quran 68:4) - "You are on a vast ethos."

But the other thing about commerce is if you are successful you have to be trustworthy. That is the essential characteristic of commerce: trustworthiness. If you give your word, you stand by it. If you write a note, you fulfill it. If you promise goods on a certain day you fulfill that and if you don't, people stop doing business with you. The Prophet ﷺ before Islam was known as الأمين the trustworthy. He was known as the most trustworthy of merchants. People knew that if you gave him your money not only did you get it back but you got it back with great benefit.

Khadijah and the Early Muslim Merchants

Khadijah never had anybody that transacted with her money like the Messenger of Allah, and should we be surprised? And when she sent Maysarah out with him, and all the people around him had beautiful names like Maysarah and Um Barakah, Um Ayman, Halima As-Sa'diyah, they all had beautiful names, all the people that raised him and nurtured him. So he's with Maysarah, the place of ease, the one who makes things easy. And Maysarah noted all these things about the Prophet ﷺ and informed Khadijah. But Khadijah had insight into who he was before anyone else, which is why she's Khadijah al-Kubra رضي الله عنها .

Her name Khadijah is from Khidaj which is like Naqs. It's usually the Arabs would, if a child was born early they would be thin and skinny they would call them Khadijah. But she's also Naqs until the Prophet ﷺ completes her. Khadijah al-Kubra was a merchant and she used her wealth for the sake of Allah سبحانه وتعالى.

Practical Solutions: Moving Your Money

Now we have to understand that the fact that we support these corporations is impacting our lives and here's what I'm going to say. People say what can I do? There's a lot you can do and so the first thing that you can do when you go home is go on moveyourmoneyproject.org, moveyourmoneyproject.org, moveyourmoneyproject.org. Get it out of banks that are doing all of these heinous things and put them into credit unions and local banks. But this is only a temporary solution. The reality of what we have to do, and I've started this process, we all have to do it, you have to move your money, get it out of these multinational banks that are...

Listen, if you want to understand what happened in Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, all these places, it's directly related to what happened on Wall Street because the commodities market zoomed up because all the real estate was collapsing and so they started putting their money into commodities. Commodities go up and suddenly the Egyptian who was paying 25% of his income for food is now paying 45% of his income for food and he can't afford it and they're literally starving. This is happening in many many places around the world, people are suffering from this unjust economic system that has to be identified. The culprits behind it need to be identified because these are real people. They have names and they're doing things that are completely immoral, they're doing things that are absolutely immoral and we are all suffering from it.

Canada's been spared a lot of this egregiousness because there were much better fiscal policies here but don't think that you're free from it. And the other thing is, if we go you go, so you better hope that, because 80% of your economy is tied to our economy and you should know that. So don't get high and mighty like we, I put maple syrup, I use it on my oatmeal. Canada imported so I'm supporting Canadian economy in my own house, alright?

Developing Islamic Banking Systems

So what you can do is move your money but that's only a temporary solution. Muslims need to develop their own banking systems. Anybody can open a bank if they have a charter, it's not hard to do. And banking is the biggest scam that's ever been perpetrated on people really, if you understand banking you will be amazed at what they get away with because this is the only private company that can create money out of nothing. We all have to earn our money, they just literally create it out of nothing.

And so you need to understand, we as a community need to open banks but they can't be like some of these shifty shady things that are going on Sharia compliant, quote unquote, right? And Canada has already tasted the bitter brunt of that, alright? So we have to, really, we have our own banks.

Islamic Insurance Systems and Muslim Doctors

The other thing that we can do: we have over 50,000 doctors in the United States of America and you've got many Muslim doctors, 50,000 Muslim doctors. And I've said this before but when an American comedian on national TV said, "I went to my doctor and he said, face Mecca and cough" and everybody in the audience laughed, you know that Muslim doctors are having an impact on this society. People put their lives in the hands of Muslim doctors every day. Muslim doctors are paying hundreds of millions of dollars in insurance every month. Who are they paying it to? They're paying it to Blue Cross. I thought we didn't believe in crosses, really. They're paying it to mutual insurance, they're paying it to all these companies.

We have a system called Takaful which is superior to this insurance system where you actually, you're investing your money and then if something happens then the money comes out of that. This is a superior system. You would get people from other faiths and non-faith people, they would want to be part of this because they wouldn't be just losing their money every month but getting something back. We need Muslim insurance companies. All you people in here are paying auto insurance. Where's the Muslim insurance company that could be a non-profit insurance company that could be giving back to the community? Where is it, where's our creativity? Why aren't we thinking economically?

The Reality of Modern Banking and Insurance Fraud

We're literally spending, we are spending so much money on these societies and what are we getting back for it? Reasonably good governance, pretty good roads you know, good amenities, nice municipalities. But much of it is being squandered on companies that are doing terrible things. They really are and if you read the fine print in a lot of these insurance companies it's amazing what they get away with. All you have to look is what happened to the people in Katrina who didn't, they had insurance against hurricanes but because the dam broke they blamed it on the dam and said oh it wasn't the hurricane and people lost their houses. I mean this is the type, this is totally unethical.

The Madness of Greed and Quranic Guidance

Now if you look, Spinoza said that greed, avarice and covetousness are species of madness, they're types of madness. We forget that these people are actually insane and yet we give money. Allah says:

"don't give idiots your wealth." Don't give idiots your wealth, Allah says this in the Quran, do not give your wealth to people that will misuse your wealth. We are empowering them with every check we write, with every time you use that credit card. Use cash, don't give them that 4%. Why should some middleman, they're trying to eliminate cash. Who wants to eliminate cash? The bankers do because they'll get 4% of every human transaction. Don't let them do that. Start using cash but that's only a temporary solution.

The Case for Commodity-Backed Currency

We need to recognize that commodity backed wealth is the only sound form of wealth. Commodity backed wealth is the only sound form of wealth. They will argue, and let me tell you something about economics majors, economics majors go through a brainwashing program, seriously, because they come out of it with all these ideas. And if you try to say something like, you know, we need to get back to a bimetal economy, oh no that's passé, they got rid of that, it was a bad system, it doesn't work. Who said it doesn't work? It worked for thousands of years. Human beings traded in gold and silver for thousands of years. Gold rarely inflates, it inflates when new mines are discovered, but there's only about a 2% increase in gold every year, so it's very minimal, but look at the inflation that your money is having.

The Poetry of Currency Collapse and Inflation

Robert Frost wrote a poem that he never published about currency and in that poem he said: "The pain of seeing 10 cents turn to 5, we clutch fiercely at the part we think we feel it in the head, the heart. Is someone cutting us in two alive? Is someone at us cutting us in half? We cast a dangerous look from where we lie up to the enthroned kings of earth and sky. They know too well what's good for them to laugh, right?"

He was talking about inflation, 1919 inflation, when Woodrow Wilson to pay for all the war problems printed up all of this money, inflating the currency. Why do you think the Chinese are angry? Because they're seeing all

of that money that they're holding is being inflated, they know what's happening. There's a book recently out called Currency Wars threatening about the collapse of the dollar and the fact that we're in a currency war. What's going on in Europe is a currency war against the euro. The euro is being destroyed. The yen, the dollar, the euro, the mark, these are the global currencies, and this is happening all around us, and yet we remain oblivious to it because these currencies are fiat currencies that have no intrinsic value.

The History of Gold, Silver, and Banking Control

Intrinsic value is in gold and silver. At the time of the Prophet, gold and silver was a 10 to 1 ratio. At the beginning of America's bi-metal economy it was a 14 to 1 ratio under Hamilton. In 1873 they prohibited silver as a monetary means of transaction. Why did they prohibit silver? Because the bankers knew that there's more silver than gold, they wanted payment in gold because farmers and poor people could pay with silver, and it was like having an easier way of paying off their debts. And so they actually outlawed silver in the United States in 1873, it was considered a great crime, and this is where you get William Jennings Bryan: "don't crucify us on a cross of gold." It was a famous speech that he gave.

The Wizard of Oz is actually a metaphor, the Wizard of Oz, the yellow brick road. In the original story she had silver slippers, because that was the secret. And he was talking about the farmers, the scarecrow represents the farmers in the agrarian areas of America, the tin man represents the industrial north, the factory workers that were losing their heart because of the alienation of their lives. I'm not making this up, this is Frank L. Baum's. It's the great mythology of America.

The Need for Islamic Economics Beyond Band-Aid Solutions

We need commodity backed currencies. We should be advocating this. We need economists that study our economics and not this superficial economics that doesn't challenge the basic suppositions of this system because Muslim economists now are talking about making halal transactions, that's band aid, it's a start. Making these certain types of loans, mudaraba, murabaha, mudaraba is makruh in the Maliki madhab, it's not an ideal system, the mudaraba system. But making these loans is better than doing the other thing because everybody should have some risk involved.

Riba is the great sin in the Quran:

"Be declared war on you, be declared war on you." The Prophet said all of them will be consuming interest or usury. Now they say usury, interest, but it's usury. All of them will be eating interest or usury. And then the sahaba said, because they knew the enormity of the sin, they said, he said all of them? And he said and the one that doesn't consume it directly will be covered in its dust. You have to see the prophecy in that.

Supporting Local Economies and Farmers

So the other thing that you can do: support your local economies. Buy local. Support your local economies. We

have farmers markets that are being revived in the United States, supporting small farmers, getting out of the agro business. All of these diseases are coming from these agro businesses. You have to support your local farmers.

The Injustice of the Food System

The other thing that's very important is to recognize the problem of food. We live in a completely unjust food system. In America because sugar can be produced much cheaper in places, they put all of these restrictions on the importation of sugar and so Americans now are eating corn syrup produced in America and getting fat from this corn syrup because corn syrup is actually not a good source of sugar. That's an example but I'll give you a worse example.

The most important study that's been done on nutrition ever is the China study by Dr. Campbell and his researchers. This was a first rate researcher from Harvard teamed up from Princeton teamed up with Oxford. He was completely credible scientist. And in China died of cancer of the bladder, before he died he set aside money to do a study of nutrition in China and disease relation. So this was independently funded. Campbell ran that team and the result of it is the China study.

The China Study and Corporate Influence on Science

Some things about the China study that are very important. The first thing is that the results were so radical that the food pyramid was changed to be more scientific but because meat and dairy were completely minimized in the diet, the meat and dairy industry in the United States lobbied so hard that they actually changed the pyramid which means science is no longer serving humanity, it's serving corporate interest. That's what it means, science is serving corporate interest, that is wrong.

In the China study what they found is that in areas where their protein was less than 5% from meat and dairy there was no cancer. There was no cancer. The original study was done in Hyderabad in India and the Harvard scientists they laughed at it and they said oh they must have got the cages mixed up. Campbell replicated this science repeatedly.

The Reality of Modern Meat and Dairy Production

Some things about meat and dairy consumption, first of all the meat and dairy today is not the meat and dairy that grandma and grandpa ate. The meat that grandma and grandpa ate were free range, what they would call now organic, they didn't have a word for it because everything was organic 50 years ago, organic, free range, happily raised animals on farms where they actually treated animals with some dignity. Farmers actually had relationships with their animals, they treated them with dignity.

Now, and my grandfather had a cattle ranch so I actually spent my summers on a cattle ranch and I herded cattle and I saw my grandfather. The first time I got on a horse, before I got on the horse he put a pencil in my mouth

Animal Rights in Islam and Modern Treatment

In the United States horses are not categorized as pets, they're categorized as livestock. You can starve a horse to death in America and not go to jail, which is wrong. Horses should have rights. Animals have rights in Islam, this is not a new concept, our religion gives animals rights. Ants have rights. In the book of Zuhd one of the sahaba used to go out and put bread crumbs on the ant hill that was near his house and one of the tabi'een asked him what he was doing. He said I don't want them testifying against me on Yawm al-Qiyamah that I didn't fulfill the rights of the neighbor. This is an ant hill. What kind of psychology did these people have? It's a different world they were living in.

Dr. Nasser was alluding to it last night, they lived in a different world. The Prophet spoke to animals, he spoke to animals. Our prophet spoke to animals, he spoke to them, and they spoke back to him. This is not mythology, this is reality. We have people today that still speak to animals. Animals respond to you, they respond to you. They're sentient creatures, they have nervous systems, they feel pain, they become depressed.

Animals and Modern Depression

In America we have dogs and cats on Prozac. This is a fact, veterinarians prescribe Prozac for dogs in America. Don't think the dog is depressed because he's a dog, he's happy to be a dog, he's depressed because he's in a house that's depressing the dog. The dog whisperer, the dog whisperer said he doesn't go solve people's dog problems, he goes and solves dogs people problems. And the same is true for the horse whisperer. Buck the horse whisperer said I don't solve people's horse problems, I solve horses people problems. Animals are intuitive, they know when something's wrong.

Umar's Prohibition and the Islamic Perspective on Meat

Sayyidina Umar during his khalifa prohibited eating meat everyday, this is a fact. Also don't think vegetarianism is not from Islam. People say that when they become, and they're vegetarian, they say oh you have to stop eating meat, I mean you have to start eating meat, your iman is not complete until you eat meat, that's what they say, and then they give them the biryani and welcome to Islam. Ibn Abi Laham one of the sahaba, Ibn Abi Laham was a vegetarian, this is in the tradition and the Prophet accepted that from him. Now if you swore off meat for Ibadah, that's a different thing, the Prophet told them not to do that. But he didn't want to eat meat, maybe he didn't like it, but today eating a lot of meat is unethical, I would say that eating fish, this is your choice and I'm not dictating to anybody, you have to make your own choices, you do your research, you know we're not fascists, think for yourselves. I'm not here to tell you what to do, I'm here to make you think about things, and you go back and you do your own research and you decide for yourselves because you're all sovereign human beings and nobody can tell you what to do other than Allah and his messenger, and that's it.

Nobody can tell you what to do and every scholar that tells you, he's telling you what he thinks Allah and his messenger is telling you what to do, that's called Ijtihad. But there are a few things where Allah spells it out and fallibilism is very important. Our scholars need to have more fallibilism. We don't doubt Islam, but we should doubt our understanding of Islam. We should doubt our understanding of Islam. We don't doubt Islam but we should doubt our understanding of Islam because to have certainty about your understanding is to arrogate to yourself some divine knowledge that you don't have.

So Sayyidina Omar said (إِيَّاكُمْ وَاللَّحْمَ فَإِنَّ لَهُ ضَرَاوَةً كَضَرَاوَةِ الْخَمْرِ - Muwatta Malik) - "beware of meat because it has addiction like the addiction of wine." Beware of meat because it has an addiction like the addiction of wine. We have Muslims now eating meat three times a day and then they're wondering why they have gout, why they have all these diseases, seriously. Start cutting that out.

The Caveman's Diet and Islamic Fasting Wisdom

The other thing, I read a book last year called The Caveman's Diet and in that book he was arguing, he's not a Muslim, he said everybody should fast at least a month out of the year where they diminish their, this is what he said in his book, he's from LA, everybody should fast a month out of the year and fast a couple of days in the month because he said our bodies are designed to be food deprived, they're designed that way to be food deprived. If you want to see an amazing documentary, look at sick, fat and nearly dead, sick, fat and nearly dead. And you look at the miracle that happens on that, a man who fasted 60 days and then got another man who was almost dead to start fasting and the man's transformation was amazing.

Transforming Our Food Habits

We need to transform our food. We need to eat healthy food that's locally grown. If we're going to eat meat, you shouldn't eat meat more than once a day, once a week. Imam Sahl al-Tustari, one of the conditions when he took on students, one of the conditions he stipulated was they only ate meat once a week. In Maliki Fiqh, a rich woman is entitled to meat twice a week. Muslims were semi-vegetarians. The Prophet was a semi-vegetarian, he did not eat a lot of meat, this is a fact, you can read it in the seerah. Two months they would see no smoke came out of his chimney and they would say, what were you eating? They said (الْأَسْوَدَانِ - Sahih al-Bukhari 2567, Sahih Muslim 2972) - al-aswadayn, it's in the sahih collection, al-aswadayn, water and dates. Dates are one of the most beneficial foods in the world.

The Cancer and Disease Epidemic

So this is absolutely imperative that you change your diets. We're eating far too much processed foods. All of this cancer, one out of four people is getting cancer now, heart disease, diabetes, 70% of people in some of the gulf states, over 40 have type 2 diabetes, 70%. They're drinking, eating all this processed food. Cancer has become epidemic in west Africa because they're eating all these processed foods. Eat fresh, healthy foods, eat

good foods. This is part of our religion. Allah doesn't mention food without mentioning halal and tayyib. Make your food a source of nutrition, don't eat empty food, don't eat too much food really, eat twice a day.

The Righteous Way of Eating

Sahl was asked, he said, what do you say about a man who eats once a day, he said (أَكْلُ الْأَنْبِيَاءِ - "akul al-anbiya," that's the way the Prophets eat. He said, what about twice a day? He said, (أَكْلُ الصِّدِّيقِينَ - "akul al-sadiqeen," that's the way the righteous eat. And then he said, what about three times a day, he said, build for them a trough. Build for them a trough.

Supporting Socially Responsible Companies

Now, the other thing and this is very important, this is I'll conclude, I'm out of time, I'll conclude with this. Support companies that are socially responsible. The way that you can do this starting out is get, there are several guides that can do this, there are fair trade guides. One of the best is the better buying, better world buying guide, you can get an app for it. I've got an app here, we actually invited the author, who's a sociologist, really sweet man, we invited him. It's called better world shopper, it's an app that you can buy, anything that you want to buy, you go onto it. So you go to supermarkets, and they will rate your supermarkets based on how socially responsible they are: A+, A, A-, C, C+, C, D, and F. Airlines, if you're going to fly, fly Virgin Airlines, fly Air Canada, fly the blue JetBlue, Southwest Airlines. There are airlines that you can, the fly that are better than the other airlines, they're more socially responsible, they're donating more, they're treating their employees well and this has been analyzed. There are people that are really serious about this.

The Freegan Movement and Moral Responsibility

There's people now called freegans, do you know about freegans? Freegans are literally dropping out, they're just checking out because they don't want to be part of this unjust system that is killing us, it's killing our planet, it's killing us. And there are people that are morally, they are more morally responsible in the non-Muslim community than I find in the Muslim community. There are, I know non-Muslims that have given up credit cards altogether because they don't want to be part of these banking systems and yet we as Muslims aren't willing to make changes. We can create our own system, we have to do these things. This is our duty.

Preparing for the Day of Judgment

And finally, this is all about preparing for the day of judgment. Maybe we won't change this thing, maybe this is the way it's all headed you know. Bob Marley, I used to listen to him when I was a kid before I became Muslim. Bob Marley, he said free your mind from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds, have no fear of atomic energy, they cannot stop the time, how long will they kill our prophets while we stand aside and look, but some say it's all a part of it, we've got to fulfill the book.

A Religion of Hope

Allah is in charge, we're not going to predict the future but we're people of hope, our religion is a religion of hope, we have hope in God, we have hope in God, we have hope in our prophet ﷺ who will never betray us, no matter how much betrayal in the world, he will never betray you, he will stand by you, he will take you across, he will give you from the hoph, he will stand by you as long as you stand by him. The Prophet will never betray you. God will never betray you. Hope is, our religion is hope, we have to give our children hope.

The Poetry of Hope

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all. And sweetest in the gale is heard and sore must be the storm that could have bashed the little bird that kept so many warm. I've seen it in the chillest land and on the strangest sea and never in extremity it asked a crumb of me. Hope is a beautiful thing. Our religion is a religion of hope. We have hope.

Conclusion: Taking Action

Change your lives, clean your houses out, stop supporting this unjust economic system