Entrepreneurship For Values And Responsibility In Middle East: Influence Of Islam Culture

Pillars Guiding Islam

Discuss about the Entrepreneurship for Values and Responsibility.

Apart from entrepreneurship and Islam, the article looks into cultural, socio-political aspects affecting Islam and conduct business. In the Middle East, Islam as a religion is seemingly a kick start in the development of commerce although it is at times perceived as a barrier in financial institutions progress due to its stringent rules on money lending and other transactions. This paper will establish the connection Islam culture as influenced by the Islam pillars as well as acceptable entrepreneurial values as per Islam’s guiding principles. The pillars of Islam form basis of obligations of Muslims in business arena as well as the normal life as the pillars define to Muslims how and how not carry themselves in terms of business to the extent that they form part of their spiritual obligation to Allah. While examining this, the influence of Islam in shaping the diverse market apart from the majorly known-for market as well the developing features of Middle East business (Gasparski, Ryan & Kwiatkowski, 2010).

Islam is anchored on five pillars that dictate the conduct and manner of carrying out activities as a believer. The pillars are based on purpose they are meant to achieve as per the intended function of a particular function. The religion just like other religion attempts to regulates actions towards Allah and fellow humans. Islam pillars ether fall in the category of permissible, not-permissible, despised commanded, recommended and forbidden. Below is a discussion of each one of the pillars and the intended purpose they acquire as prescribed in Islam ( Kayed & Hassan, 2011).

This is related to the conduct of the faithful during the Holy month of Ramadhan. Adherence to the dictates of fasting falls under the commanded category while failure to abstain from sex, alcohol and other luxuries falls under the category of forbidden. The conduct of Muslim especially during the Holy month of Ramadhan greatly affects business due to the limited and regulated consumption and trading activities taking place. For example, Muslim faithful is prohibited from taking pork meat as that fall under the forbidden category which in turn falls under the despised category. Flowing from that premise alone, the culture to that extent affects development of entrepreneurship especially in selling pork meat in the Middle East In (Landes, Mokyr &  Baumol, 2010)

This pillar comes in to regulate the conduct of the faithful when it comes worship and prayers. The creed dictates that only God is to worshipped and no other which goes hand in hand with observance of the Holy day of worshipping. It also relates to monotheism in that the faithful should only recognize Allah and Prophet Muhammad as Allah’s prophet. Any deviation from the creed falls under the commanded as the creed flows from Allah’s commandments. The creed thus influences and limits what a faithful should prioritize in terms of entrepreneurship and observance of the creed.

Prayers and Pilgrimage

This pillar encourages the faithful in helping the disadvantaged members of the society through giving especially the needy. The pillar also encourages social security welfare in Islam security which has been there in the Middle East which in turn has since developed into charitable foundations. Charitable acts fall under the permissible and recommended category and goes hand in hand with affecting the interaction of businesses with the society.

This touches on the number of prayer times a faithful should subscribe to daily as well as the types of prayers on should do. Praying five times a day is commanded under Islam while exceeding the prayer times is encouraged and falls under recommended category. Saying a Du’a or Salat is generally commanded to a Muslim where one is a personal prayer by a faithful to Allah and a prayer for special times, for example, ritual prayers, respectively. Related to ritual prayers is paying is the recommended visit of a Muslim faithful at least in lifetime to the Holy city of Mecca and Medina (Hassan  & Lewis, 2007).

The Islam a culture accepts and commends legitimate effort for one to make money in terms of profit, especially in business. In the same breadth, Islam culture loathes illegitimate ways of making money and that makes such acts as prohibited under the pillars. From the foregoing, a business activity that develops from fraudulent means are not accepted before the eyes of the minimum acceptable forms of conducts of Muslims. Conversely, Islam focuses on collective operations of business as opposed to an individualistic form of business although it encourages a free market (Chamlou & World Bank,2008).

The author employs a desktop review of secondary resources available. From a comparative analysis of research and findings, the author discovers that the Middle East has greatly pressed of Family owned businesses especially in oil business. It is the author’s finding that the market should be diversified to allow and encourage other forms of business apart from oil industry to excel. A point of concern also is the notion of business ownership and control in the Middle East that majorly anchored on Islam culture of collective ownership.  The author has also used case study research in drawing a comparative study in the perspectives of gender emancipation as well as historical research in tracking the development in terms of socioeconomic and political changes in the Middle East(Hassan  & Lewis, 2007).

Research Methodology

Historically, women in the Middle East had limited roles in socioeconomic and political participation. Although, in almost all countries, women have been allowed the right to vote and be voted in fir elective positions, participation of women in economic activities remains greatly limited. This is due to poor awareness against discrimination against women as well uncoordinated or lack of women empowerment programs. Due to the limited space in economic arena, women are only able to access and control small business enterprises which negligibly contribute to their economic wellbeing. Some Islamic culture dictating that women should put on hijabs and should not drive cars are not mandated under Q’uran but has come into being as a result of social arrangement of culture of Muslims.

In Saudi Arabia, for instance has not invested in health care services but has concentrated on oil market which has resulted to unaffordability of support services such as health due to unavailability. The market terrain in the Middle East should be enabled by both the government by injecting funds in infrastructural development such as health so as to ease the cost of treatment of chronic disease. For example, in Saudi Arabia, the people face high cost of treatment due to the high prices charged at the private hospital which are very few. Diversification of entrepreneurial skills and opportunity would change the face in the accessibility of social services such as health and schools. The government should put in place incentives to attract investors in others forms of trading other than oil which are family-owned businesses ( Kayed & Hassan, 2011).

Conclusion

Entrepreneurship in the Middle East is highly influenced by the Islam culture which verifies from traditionalist, modernists and Muslim liberals. Traditionalists believe the Islam culture on business should be followed to the letter while the modernist deviates where there is reasonable cause to do so. The liberals are on the extreme end who are willing to do anything, including disobeying the pillars and culture to make money. It is the author’s conclusion that the dissenting voices in the market be unified to allow for a conducive environment of entrepreneurship in the Middle East. Also, the idea of family-owned business based on collective ownership and control tend to unhealthy for businesses at times in terms of expansion and growth. This is due to narrow opportunities associated with family-owned businesses and wide challenges associated to such arrangements. Due to the peculiarity of these businesses, the respective governments and academia as well as the media should extensively involve the business classes in policy and planning.

It is the considered conclusion that participation of women in socioeconomic and political development in the Middle East has not been maximized for lack of empowerment and proper and appropriate policies to encourage women participation. The individual governments should put in place mechanisms and programs directed towards achievement of maximum participation of women in every arena devoid of any discrimination.

Reference List:

Chamlou, N., & World Bank. (2008). The environment for women’s entrepreneurship in the Middle East and North Africa. Washington, D.C: World Bank.

Gasparski, W., Ryan, L. V., & Kwiatkowski, S. M. (2010). Entrepreneurship: Values and responsibility. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.

Hassan, K., & Lewis, M. (2007). Handbook of Islamic banking. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.

Kayed, R. N., & Hassan, K. (2011). Islamic entrepreneurship.

In Landes, D. S., In Mokyr, J., & In Baumol, W. J. (2010). The invention of enterprise: Entrepreneurship from ancient Mesopotamia to modern times. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press.

Ramadani, V., Dana, L.-P., Ge?rguri-Rashiti, S., Ratten, V., & Springer International Publishing AG. (2017). Entrepreneurship and management in an Islamic context. Cham: Springer.