During the last two hundred years the Muslims have been forced to abandon their own way of conducting public affairs. Thusshari'a has been progressively reduced to a code regarding only individual and sexual matters at the same time as the rules of trade and industry have been abandoned. The Murabitun are the first group of activist Muslims in this period of darkness to reestablish the practice of trade that is declaredhalal (permitted) by the
shari'a and to abandon the usurious practices that have corrupted commercial life at the present day.
The Murabitun are leading other Muslims to return to the practice of Islamic
Trading.
The Islamic Model of trade is based upon the prohibition that Allah has made clear in the Qur'an:
Allah has permitted trade and forbidden usury
(Qur'an 2, 275)
Allah also says in the Qur'an:
Oh you who believe! take shelter in Allah and abandon what
remains (due to you) of usury if you are (indeed) believers. But if you do it
not, then take notice of war from Allah and His Messenger
(Qur'an 2, 278-279)
We witness the crime of usury being committed daily against all humanity by the banking system, resulting in the death of thousands of people throughout the world, the starvation of many others, the creation of the unnatural phenomenon of unemployment, the destruction of small businesses, and the general impoverishment of most of mankind.
In the face of these well-known disasters and in the face of a general recognition that the role of the banks is not innocent, when the majority of analysts agree that interest debt is a direct cause of death and stagnation in poor countries, when everybody dislikes the banks, but are made to believe they need the banks! and that there is nothing we can do about that! and in a general climate of resigned helplessness, the Murabitun are creating active solutions. The Murabitun are establishing a way out of the usurious banking system.
The Islamic model returns life to impoverished workers by rooting out the parasite of the banks, which live off the workers' work. In the Islamic model unemployment does not exist, the worker is not the slave of a salary but he enjoys his own business, usually in association, free from the compulsion of having to work for someone else for an inadequate salary.
In the Islamic model multinationals and supermarkets are eliminated and rather
than one owner and one thousand employees, as is the case in any supermarket today, in the Islamic model we have a thousand free owners in an open market. The Islamic model removes any form of monopoly, which has reduced everybody to a humble salaried worker, and thus gives a chance of independence to the self-motivated individual in a 'free-market-without-usury'.
1.Amirate
In each city where there is a group of Murabitun there is anAmir.
Amirate is the traditional form of authority among all peoples. The
Amir is the authority of a place or a city, within the reach of the people, identical to the head of the clan in Scotland, or theburuzagi or leader in the Basque Country. TheAmir does not allow the collection of any form of taxation amongst his people. He does not have a salary or a police force, the people are his force. TheAmir does not administer the private property of the individuals in the community. He is not a head of state. TheAmir
governs and appoints aQadi to judge in the event of a dispute, nothing
more: no taxes or police. TheAmir is the guarantor of trust among the people because he does not allow robbery, taxation, imposition of a single medium of exchange, monopolies, or other forms of usury.
Thanks to Amirate, we are reintroducing trust to the trading
relations of the Muslims and, honesty in the fulfillment of their contracts. We are creating trust without a letter of credit, without bank guarantees. We are creating trust because we accept theshari'a and we have anAmir to implement it. Trust cannot properly exist without Amirate. Trust comes with Amirate, as indeed doesZakat, and with trust we do not need the banking system.
Thus more and more Muslims, fed up with the permanent blood-sucking of the bank, and conscious of what Allah has madehalal (permissible) and what He has madeharam (forbidden), are establishing new Amirates throughout the world and joining the Murabitun in the struggle for the sake of Allah.
2. Islamic Business and Commercial
Contracts.
With these contracts we have replaced the contracts which are predominant in the usurious environment: interest-debt and the contract of the salaried-worker, which, although it is permissible inshari'a, has exceeded its natural limitations with the creation of a 'class of the workers'.
In their place we haveqirad and
shirkah. The knowledge and use of these contracts
which have been made inaccessible due to the corruption of modern state-paid
scholars, are now being put into practice by Murabitun all over the world.
Our business contracts are always written down with a scribe and witnesses,
as Allah demands in the Qur'an. A scribe preserves the equity of both
parties. The presence of a scribe prevents 95% of all problems simply because
he chooses the most suitable form of contract for every occasion. When a disagreement occurs instead of submitting it to the state courts our pact is to deal with it ourselves. In the case of disagreement we submit the matter to a Qadi (judge) appointed by the Amir.
The Qadi judges and the Amir guarantees that the judgement of the Qadi is executed. The Qadi judges on the basis of the most pure texts of Islamic Law following the Sunna of the First Community of Madinah: "Al-Qur'an", " Al-Muwatta" of Imam Malik, "Al-Mudawwana" of Imam Sahnun, and their most commonly accepted commentaries.
With these early sources of Islamic Fiqh, the purity of contracts is
preserved.
Islamic forms of contracting ensure the removal of the slightest trace of usury from commercial agreements, thus guaranteeing equity in the contracts. With the use of these business contracts we were forced to recreate the forms of commercial organization that are based on these contracts and were common in the Sunna (practice) of the Prophet of Islam,salla'llahu alayhi wa sallam, and his Companions.
Thus our use of theqirad is resulting in the establishment of commercial caravans and the use of theshirkah is resulting in the creation of guild associations.
The guilds were the traditional organizations of producers. We began with some established occupations, and we transformed the relationship between employer and employee: in the traditional guild the Master of a trade accepted some apprentices to serve and learn. This relationship was more than a salary and the apprentice was taught to become a Master. When the moment came the Master gave the apprentice, or a group of them, his reputation, access to his tools, his clients, his knowledge, his workshop so that they could start up independently. Thus we can generate new businesses without apprentices having to go and borrow money from the bank to buy tools, the workshop and advertising.
Now with the instruments of trading of the Sunna (practice) of the Prophet,salla'llahu alayhi wa sallam, we can quickly multiply our businesses . The old Master has now learned that he is more protected, for it is better to be surrounded by an army of equals than to have an army of slaves. Our guilds now generate employment, eliminate unemployment and remove the need for banks.
The Murabitun use in their trading the forms of contracts accepted in the Islamic Law, thus protecting equity in the contracts among the people.
Muslims all over the world are joining the Murabitun out of their duties to Allah in their commercial life, since we are the only group of Muslims today standing for the implementation of Halal Trading.
Many Muslims are now abandoning the so-called Islamic Bank because they
have realized that it is a usurious institution disguised as Islamic by its name
and appearance while remaining entirely inside the usurious system. These people are now coming under the banner of Halal Trading raised by the Murabitun.
3. Establishment
of Commercial Routes
The use of Islamic contracts led us to reestablish the traditional forms of trading among Muslims, namely caravans and ambassadors. Caravans and commercial representatives were common elements in non-usurious trade. Our caravans are, of course, no longer made up of camels but use modern methods of transportation and communication. Our ambassadors are not the representatives of one state in another, but they are what they used to be, that is commercial representatives moving from one city to another, from one Amirate to another.
The word accessibility is the key to understanding the tremendous importance of these commercial figures. The establishment of commercial routes from one Amirate to another allows access from one to another. Access allows the sharing of goods between one place and another.
The caravan is established under a person or a group representing and selling goods from one city to another. Instead of ten people doing the journey on their own, one accepts to be the representative of all,including those who never thought of doing so because they were not prepared to do it on their own. Thus the caravan is born. The representative finds out that he is having more business as a representative than on his own, therefore instead of going once a year he will go six times a year.
When the traffic reaches a high enough level, the Amir chooses a permanent
ambassador in the other Amirate. This is how the ambassador is established.
The opening of the routes guarantees accessibility.
Accessibility revolutionizes the way in which business today is understood and conducted. In the face of the helplessness of a consciously-designed unemployed worker, who is now made to believe that his condition is somehow logical and therefore acceptable, we bring forward the self-sustained spirit of our commercial representatives or ambassadors.
We are taking people who thought they were helpless because they did not own anything and teaching them that not to be an owner does not matter to us, what matters is their honesty which has already been proved. We taught them that to make business, to become an independent businessman, they do not need to own what they
trade with, all they need is access, and the access is what we can provide for
those who prove trustworthy within the Amirate. Thus, with the help of Allah, we are transforming a world of unemployment, designed to isolate, into a world of independent people in an ambience of trust generated by the Amirate, just commercial contracts, and the accessibility and sharing of wealth among the Muslims. We are liberating honest people enslaved by usury through the implementation of the orders of Allah, that are to be found in theshari'a.
Islam is a model of common sharing with private ownership.
People privately own their merchandise but, through Amirate, trust, and Islamic contracts, someone else may have commercial access to merchandise in
your community or outside your community without exchanging ownership. You do not need to be an owner to have your own business.
Accessibility transforms salary-slaves into free-traders.