40 Hadiths on Social Justice
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Hadith #24 – Insurance Companies and Vulnerable Citizens
Sh. Omar Suleiman covers the concept of gharar and uncertainty in Islam.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen. Wa la'udhu wa la'ana ila a'lamin. Wa la'aqeebatu lilmuttafeen. Allahumma salli wa sallim wa baraka ala abdika wa rasulika Muhammadin salallahu alayhi wa sallam wa ala anhi wa sahbihi wa salam wa taslimin kathira. Okay, so we are now on hadith 24. 24, right? Alright, what did we talk about last week? Riba. We talked about interest. Now, just a couple of notes inshallah ta'ala before I talk about tonight's class, just to reiterate that we are going to be taking a break from this halaqa for a few weeks inshallah ta'ala. So we will restart this halaqa on, actually a month, we will restart it on January 16th inshallah. So this halaqa, we are going to break until January 16th. I did the math. That should put us to end the 40th hadith the week of Ramadan inshallah. So hopefully we will finish this series right going into Ramadan. And it will allow us to move on to the next one bi'l-dinay ta'ala after Ramadan. Another thing is that tonight's subject also deals with finance, but I want to offer a disclaimer. This isn't an Islamic finance class. And it's hard for me even in preparing the notes of the class to not fall into the trap of going through a discussion of halal and haram, what's lawful and prohibited in regards to transactions. Because the goal of this class is to demonstrate Islam's wholesome paradigms in dealing with social injustice. Most injustices take place either within or due to financial transactions. So they always say follow the money, right? So money causes most of the world's problems. Or there are problems in the way that money is dealt with in the realm of transactions. So this is a class on social justice. The goal is to show those paradigms and then obviously to put not just pressure on us
in regards to how we make sure that we conform to Islam's moral code or its ethics and financial transactions to the best of our ability, but also how we seek to shift within our own capacity, the way our communities function, and to offer alternative ways of dealing with these things from an ethical perspective. And so tonight's topic was particularly really difficult. And inshallah ta'ala what I plan to do, it'll probably be a little bit shorter of a halaqa tonight than it was last week because we did get started a little late. But hopefully once this is all done, just so you all know the intention, after these 40 hadith and these classes are done, we're taking notes obviously that you can find on the website every week. The goal will be to compile it in a book form inshallah, and then more details will be filled out within that book form. So there are a lot of things that I might not cover tonight based on feedback, based on how things go once we get to publication, inshallah ta'ala we'll fill in some of these details. So tonight we're talking about a concept in Islam known as gharar. Gharar is uncertainty and most often it comes into the discussion of insurance. So we talked about interest bearing transactions, we talked about why Islam took such a strong stance against insurance, against interest and usury, riba, and how riba has become a tool of the elite to exploit the vulnerable. And essentially how the whole concept of lending in Islam falls under charity, not under business. It's the concept of making money off of lending in Islam. Because that would require for those that have money to exploit people in their vulnerable moments, and to bury them in debt, and then to make money off of that money and nothing else. We talk about insurance companies, we talk about riba.
I might sound like Bernie Sanders a few times today. This isn't a socialist, Marxist world view. This is a very, you know, it's meant to be a very unique Islamic view of how these things are viewed. The concept of insurance and the concept of gharar and what that actually means. So I want to start off with this. The goal in Islam is to end exploitation, is to end exploitation of the vulnerable. And so you're not going to find an exact counterpart in Islam to riba-based loans, to usury or interest-bearing lending, or to commercial insurance, because Islam discourages wealth maximization that arises from the exploitation of vulnerability. Taking advantage of people in their vulnerable moments or in their fear, or when they don't have something and, you know, they need to resort to things that are not pleasant in order to get themselves out of an unfavorable situation. That is in, you know, it completely contradicts the objectives of Islamic law, the maqasid. And so you're not going to find these exact counterparts. So I'll go through just a technical overview of gharar, of what gharar is, and then we'll talk about it from a societal perspective and how this falls into the discussion of social justice. The hadith is in Sahih Muslim, and there are many hadiths like it. نَهَى رَسُولُ اللهِ ﷺ عَن بَيْعِ الْحَصَىٰ وَعَن بَيْعِ الْغَرَرِ That the Prophet ﷺ forbade transactions that are determined by the throwing of stones or transactions that involve uncertainty, transactions that involve gharar. Gharar means deceptive uncertainty, an unacceptable level of ambiguity. We've talked about in previous halaqas, deception in your product.
We've talked about showing the good and covering the bad when you're selling. We've talked about these types of things, but gharar is an unacceptable level of ambiguity. After riba, after the prohibition on interest, the prohibition of gharar is the most important Islamic safeguard against injustice in commercial transactions. It's meant to minimize deception. It's meant to decrease the likelihood of disputes, because most of the time dispute arises in the presence of uncertainty. The uncertainty is okay when you're on good terms, the uncertainty is exploited when you're on bad terms. So it's meant to minimize deception, to decrease the likelihood of dispute, to reduce the opportunity of exploitation, to prevent people getting cheated. Whether it's the insurer or the insured, whatever side of this transaction you're on to prevent people from being treated. So gharar, cheated. Gharar literally means, actually it's literal meaning, it means danger in the Arabic language. It means exposure to destruction. It means excessive risk. It refers to deception and it refers to uncertainty. So again, danger, exposure to destruction, excessive risk, deception and uncertainty. So in financial transactions, it refers to fraud through uncertainty. So fraudulent activity through uncertainty. And it refers to both the buyer and the seller, the one who's in a place of advantage and the one who is being insured, or the one who's on the buying end of this, the consumer end of this. So it refers to both.
You can both participate in gharar. You might go into something not knowing exactly what's going to happen. So you might willfully enter into an arena of excessive risk, and that's prohibited in the shariah when it comes to a financial transaction. It resembles what? What does it resemble? Gambling. Okay? When you don't know what you're getting into, and you have uncertainty or ignorance over the object of the sale. So it's meant to protect both sides of the transaction. So Shaykh Al-Islam bin Taymiyyah, rahimahullah, he defined gharar, he said, when someone doesn't know what's in store for him at the end of the trade. That's the first thing, when someone doesn't know what's in store for him at the end of the trade. And I'll define this a little bit more particular. I'm trying very hard not to take off the Islamic finance hat and stick to social justice, but I'm just going to give you these technical definitions so that you can have these concepts, inshallah ta'ala, understood when we start talking about it from the societal perspective. So again, what did I just say the definition is? You don't have to give me verbatim, but you don't know what's at the end of the trade. You don't know what's at the end of the trade. And he further went on to say, it's a combination of risk-taking and the devouring of the property of one party by the other. So it's risk-taking and the devouring of the property of one party by the other. Now some of you might say, well wait a minute, there's risk in every business transaction. There's meant to be risk, right? There's supposed to be some level of risk. We talked about this, how Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala responded to those, ahallallahu al-bay' wa harram al-riba, those who said that bay' is just like riba, that sale, trade is just like interest, it's just like usury. It's the same thing, as an excuse for what? For them to engage in usury.
It's essentially the same thing. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala made one permissible and he excessively prohibited the other being interest. So yes, there is meant to be risk in a business transaction. In fact, Islam stipulates there be a liability of loss as a condition for the validity of profit. There has to be a liability of loss as a condition for the validity of profits. Otherwise, it's riba. That's the whole point of when you invest in something or you buy something and sell it at a higher price as opposed to, I'll give you this money to go buy it and you pay me the higher price. I am not incurring any liability in the process. I'm putting all the liability on that person. That's riba. So Islam actually stipulates liability on the part of both parties in order for it to be a valid transaction in the first place. But that's investment, that's not lending, because there is no Islamic concept of lending for business. We already covered that last week. So then what about musharaka? Like when people go into a partnership, there are different types of Islamic finance models. So still the ratios have to be well defined so that the risk is equally shared. So the point is that there is going to be risk, but the risk has to involve some level of investment on both parties and there has to be as much definition as possible. So there is some uncertainty that exists in every business transaction. What is gharar in regards to a business transaction? There could be uncertainty in the value of the subject matter. The big discussion, and don't ask me about what is everyone asking about now when it comes to finance. There you go.
So the scholars that would prohibit that would prohibit it on the basis of gharar here that there is uncertainty in the value of the subject matter. I am not giving a fatwa that it is prohibited, because to be honest with you, I don't have a fatwa on it. I am looking at big scholars that are still analyzing it and haven't given a fatwa on it because it has been such a rapid development. So I am not going to tell you whether it is halal or haram. But this is where the discussion comes in. Is there actual value in the subject matter? Think about pyramid schemes. Is there actual value in the subject matter? Is there uncertainty in the very value of the subject matter? Uncertainty, there could be gharar on the time or the amount of payment on deferred sales. So I will pay you later. Or uncertainty on the quality and quantity. So the Prophet, Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, for example, he prohibited that you buy fruits before they become ripe. Because you don't know what is going to come out of it. Or you say to a person, Rasulallah Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, prohibited someone from buying whatever is in the fishnet. So whatever comes out when you cast your net, I am going to buy that for this price. You have to wait to see what comes out. He also prohibited a person selling birds in the sky. There are actual hadiths to prohibit these things because the Arabs had very unique schemes, just like every society has unique schemes. I think we are the most creative society in the history of the world in wronging people in the financial realm, to be honest with you. I don't think anyone has ever been as creative as we are. But that is another story. But the point is there are various schemes, right, that all lead to the distribution of wealth in a way that is not going to be equitable. There could be uncertainty on its existence. The Prophet, Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, prohibited people from buying an unborn animal. So I am going to buy the animal that comes out from this animal. Because there is uncertainty if the pregnancy will go through, if that animal will actually be born.
But can I buy a pregnant animal? Yes. Is there more value if the animal eventually gives birth? Like maybe I am going and I am purchasing an animal. Those of you that purchase animals, I don't know if VRIC sells animals or not. But we don't. Okay. But if you are purchasing sheep or livestock, the value could be increased if there is a pregnancy, right? So maybe that means more for me. But the sale itself can't be predicated on that. So I might choose to buy that animal and say, you know what, hopefully this will be two animals. But at the same time I can't say I am going to buy the unborn animal because there is uncertainty in its existence. This is a big one in modern times. Uncertainty on ownership and availability and deliverability. What does that mean? Almost everything in the financial realm today depends on selling something you don't quite yet possess. Especially people that sell things in large quantities. I don't yet possess it but I'll sell it and then I'll purchase the product. Is that haram or is that not haram? Technically speaking, you can't sell something you don't own. That is haram. You can't sell something you don't own. However, the scholars talked about whether the prohibition is in regards to the habb, is it in regards to the actual possession of that item or if there is uncertainty in whether or not you'll be able to deliver. You guys hear the difference between the two? Is there any uncertainty in your ability to deliver it or not? Ibn al-Qayyim, rahimahu Allah, said, if there is no uncertainty then the prohibition doesn't exist. If you're certain in its possession, then the prohibition is not there. So it's not about the actual possession as opposed to the uncertainty that comes with that possession. So I might sell you something that I don't own
and you're buying from me thinking I own it and I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to deliver. So there's a deception there that's present. So the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, prohibited technically selling that which you don't own. So there's ownership, availability, and deliverability. There's gharar that is acceptable and gharar that is unacceptable. So gharar that is consequential and gharar that's not, uncertainty that's not. So for example, I'm going to sell you an iPhone. If I say I'm going to sell you an iPhone, how much do you want for the iPhone? $500. I haven't told you what model it is. That's an impermissible transaction because there's too much gharar. I'm not even going to make that joke because you might take me seriously about the difference or the variance between some models. But the point is that I've got to be as specific as possible and there might be some uncertainty that comes with that sale. But at the same time, I have to be as specific as possible. There is going to be some gharar. You know how when you go and you buy the phone from the store, you get a batch? The store gets a batch. You might get lucky. You might get one of the good phones or the bad phones. How many times did it affect its signal? How many times the box or that particular crate was tossed around? All of that is gharar. There's some uncertainty in it. But that's an acceptable level of uncertainty. Okay? All right. So what's the difference between the two? Or what is the gharar? I'm just going to give you three rules, inshallah ta'ala, then we'll move on to the social justice part. So the first one is the gharar has to be significant. The uncertainty has to be significant for it to be prohibited. So Ibn al-Qayyim, rahimahullah, said, if the gharar is slight or it cannot be avoided, then it doesn't hinder the validity of the contract. Okay? If it's slight and it cannot be avoided,
then it doesn't hinder the validity of the contract. So just some of the examples that I just gave you right now. Okay? So when I sell a house, you see that the house has the walls and it has all this. There is some uncertainty as to what's going on behind the walls. I don't know if there are rats in the house. Maybe I have a suspicion. I don't know if there's foundation issues. I'm looking at certain things. But the point is that there is going to be some level of uncertainty that comes as a result of that, and that's not consequential. Okay? It's not significant. And that type of gharar, which is insignificant, is permitted, as opposed to the selling of something that is ambiguous or uncertain, or the selling of risk. The second thing, the gharar has to exist in what is contracted itself. So I said the first rule is that the gharar has to be significant. The second rule is that it has to exist in that which is contracted itself. So I mentioned, for example, it was permissible, or the permissibility of... It's not working. Too cute. I can't... All right. What's that? Okay. So the permissibility of selling something that might have an added benefit where there is some uncertainty in regards to the secondary matter of it, as opposed to selling something that is uncertain in and of itself. Okay? So the prohibition of selling fruits until they have ripened is there, but it's permitted to sell it along with the tree. So I'm buying a tree. The fruits may or may not grow on it. That's fine. There is some gharar. There is some uncertainty in there. However, there is no gharar or uncertainty in the sale... I'm sorry. There is gharar, and it's haram in the sale of fruits
that have not yet ripened. The third thing is looking at the need of the contract itself. The contract must not be warranted by a need. The contract must not be warranted by a need. So Ibn Taymiyyah said that the harm in gharar is less than that of riba, and thus it was consented in cases of need. The harm of gharar is less than riba, and so it was accepted in cases of need. In a modern context, you are mandated, for example, to have liability car insurance. That doesn't excuse you to get all the optional stuff as well. Okay? There might be something that's prohibitive, that if you don't have health insurance, it's illegal, obviously, and that's still being debated. But even before Obamacare comes along or mandates Obamacare health insurance or whatever that means now, it's prohibitive to not have health insurance. You can't afford to get sick in this country, right? So there's a permissibility there. So permissibility would be extended in cases of need. That does not mean that it's extended to all cases in which they are optional. Okay? So what does this mean now in terms of our societal understanding of insurance and gharar and what that refers to? As I said, the goal is to end exploitation. So is there an Islamic concept of insurance and taking care of people? Pooling resources and mutual cooperation is part of our deen. In fact, Islam has some of the most innovative models in that regard, dating back to the Prophet ﷺ. So there's a hadith, it's in Al-Bukhari, where the Prophet ﷺ talked about, where it's narrated by Abu Mus'ad Ash'ari, radiAllahu anhu, and the Prophet ﷺ said that when the Ash'ari tribe are on an expedition
and they run out of food supplies or food becomes scarce for their families in Medina, they put everything together they have in one lot and then they divide it equally amongst themselves. And the Prophet ﷺ said, they are for me and I am for them, meaning he was praising that. This idea of pooling resources, taking care of everyone. The Prophet ﷺ also praised a tribe that maintains a pool for itself, or he accepted a tribe that would maintain a pool of resources for itself so that if someone from that tribe found themselves in a detrimental situation, the tribe could take care of that person. That's something that was permitted. So when we talk about this idea of mutual guarantee, or this idea of Islamic cooperative insurance, we find early Islamic models of when Muslims started to take to the seas, so ship insurance if you will. As they embarked on their journeys, all of them pooling their money so that if one person's ship went bad, then there was money to take care of that. All of that is found in our tradition. And when it comes to natural disaster, or the case of unforeseen circumstances, that's where you had Bayt al-Madh, that's where you had the treasury. So traditionally speaking, when you study the Islamic model, that's where the government came in. There was already social security. It was built in. It was the responsibility of the government to take care of its citizens. When there was a natural disaster or some unforeseen circumstance that had nothing to do with any irresponsibility of their own, or anything that they did, or any faulty transaction, it was something completely unforeseen, that was the responsibility of state. And that's something that we find in our tradition. So as you can see, the idea is that the Islamic model is based on unity, it's based on participation, it's based on guaranteeing that people don't find themselves
in detrimental situations or circumstances. There is no profit to be made off of this. There is no profit to be made off of this. So the first golden rule here is that insurance is permissible if the insurer provides profit shares instead of fixed amounts. So there's a mutual participation in this insurance, and I'll get to that in a moment. So what happens here when we talk about social injustice? Why are we talking about insurance companies? This is where the Bernie Sanders part comes out. If you think about the way that big insurance companies function today and the way that people are drowned, constantly paying their premiums, the first thing is that less than 3% of that which goes to insurance companies collectively comes back to those who are paying. So you've got companies that are profiting off of people's vulnerability and making killer profits at that. And there are lobby groups and all types of things to ensure that those models stay in place. There is a competitive nature. There is a way to raise premiums and to put people in a situation where they have to opt to pay higher premiums. And again, how much of that money is actually coming back? So there is riba, which is the excess money to the policy, to the companies, and there is gharar, there is uncertainty because you don't know what's actually going to happen here. And more than likely, 97% of the money is not going to come back to the holders, the policy holders. So it's circulation amongst big companies. So again, it's the rich getting richer off of the vulnerabilities of the layperson, which is really fraudulent if you think about this. Islam indeed tries to protect against things of that sort. So for one person to experience a financial benefit,
another person has to experience a financial loss. So people put in this money and you're banking on the idea that nothing is going to happen to this person and something will happen to this person, and they're going to take that money. So there is a problem there as well. There is the selling of ambiguity, which is prohibited in the shara' as a whole, and has major problems to it. So in Islam, if you look at maysr, which is gambling, it's wealth obtained by chance. A person is trying to obtain wealth by chance. With gharar, it's pure risk, it's pure uncertainty, it's pure hazard. Riba is usury. But if you think about insurance and how it functions today, in a way it's worse than gambling. It really is, the way that it functions. I'm talking about the system. Let's put the onus back on the way that the system functions. In gambling, you theoretically have a chance to win more than what you put in. With insurance, at best, you only receive a replacement of what you lose. At best. So subhanAllah, the gharar here is even worse. It actually puts a person in a worse situation sometimes as gambling. Then, if you think about the way that the uncertainty here is used, it creates an atmosphere of cheating and deception. Insurance companies scrutinize claims extremely closely. Why? Because at the end of the day, they're going to try to escape their responsibility to pay you back anything. Look at what happens when Hurricane Katrina happened. This is the New Orleans park. Oh, well, there's no flood insurance. Well, that doesn't count, and this doesn't count. Insurance companies will try to escape their responsibility after taking your money, and they have to scrutinize the claims very strictly. So here's what happens in that scrutiny.
They might end up denying benefits to people that actually deserve them, the claims that actually have merit. So you have some people that pay their entire lives, that drain themselves financially to feed these companies, and then don't receive legitimate compensation for losses that are supposed to be guaranteed. And then you have others on the other side that will cheat the insurance companies, that will falsify claims in order to get more from the insurance companies. So you have lying and cheating on both sides that occurs. Now, we're talking about, again, the way that the system functions. The insurance companies want to take as much money from you as possible and pay you back as little as possible, and you'll have consumers that want to pay as little premium as possible, but then falsify claims and then get back and cheat so that they can get back as much money as possible. So that's obviously where the gharar ends up causing cheating and deception on both sides. Cheating and deception on both sides. And this is where you have people burning down their stores. I'm not giving anyone any ideas. It's a horrible idea that will do things. And yes, sometimes Muslims will do stuff like this. So you have cheating that goes both ways, and you say, hey, well, they cheat us, so we're going to cheat them. Get the insurance company back. So it's an atmosphere of lying and cheating on both sides. And also when it comes to insurance, obviously there is the jihad that takes place, the ambiguity that you don't know what you are getting in return for your payments. So one person might pay one month of premiums and get a huge payout. Another person pays forever and gets nothing in return. So that uncertainty obviously is inequitable. It's not fair.
And obviously what this creates in society is that, once again, when we talked about bribes and we talked about deception and we talked about all of these other atmospheres and these things that the Prophet sliced and prohibited, in order to get ahead, you have to be willing to taint yourself and to play dirty games so that you don't end up getting the worst end of this deal. So if you think about what this means for society and what this does for society, this is not just an issue of halal and haram for me as a person. It creates major gaps, major social injustices, and continues to make the rich richer and the poor even poorer. So what's an alternative here? What does Islam offer as an alternative here? Cooperative, benevolent insurance, mutual insurance, this idea of people coming together and participating together to take care of each other. This could be implemented on a community level. It could be implemented by a group of families. It could be implemented by five or six friends, that you pool your money to take care of each other if someone ends up in a situation that's detrimental, an unforeseen circumstance or a situation. And there are some countries, by the way, that are trying to adopt these types of models. The money even comes back, because again, there is no profit from this. So technically speaking, everyone is supposed to receive what wasn't used at the end of the day. So Kuwait, for example, is trying to adopt some sort of a model like this where everyone pays a monthly premium, but whatever isn't used for admin fees or covering claims is returned back to the insured at the end of the year. And then the cycle is repeated, so there is no profit involved in all of this. So since there is no profit, the exploitation is non-existent. The incentive to exploit is non-existent in the system.
So someone might say, well, people are bound to exploit. As long as the profit incentive is there, this is obviously something that's going to be exploited. And if you think about what that covers, it covers education, it covers our health, it covers our life insurance, I mean, if you think, our homeowners, it covers all of our means or modes of stability in life are owned and dominated by this institution, right, where exploitation is rampant. So Islam encourages that the consequences of any hardship are to be shared in this model, even if it befalls some of its members. So you do have now these models that come up of taqaful, where groups come together to mutually agree to protect each other. Obviously, Malaysia is one of the countries that's experimenting with many of these Islamic finance models to try to come up with something like that. And subhanallah, you'll find articles. If you don't have a subscription to The Economist, then you can't read the article. But there are a lot of articles about how Western countries are adopting some of these models or starting to warm up to some of these models in order to mitigate some of the harm that's come up from the big bubbles, the massive bubbles that have been formed by riba and gharar. So insurance features fixed payments in exchange for uncertain returns. So Islam eliminates the uncertainty part. Fixed payments are not the problem. It's about the uncertainty and the exploitation that comes with conventional or commercial insurance. Now, I want to make a few things clear here. This is not – this onus is not just on the individual to think about halal and haram and what they deal with in regards to insurance. I have to make this decision or I have to make that decision. But it's important for us to actually be able to offer solutions
and to come up with creative ways, creative ways to protect ourselves from these things. So if there are creative ways to protect ourselves from these things, we should. Also, looking at commercial insurance, not all evils are alike. It's just like when you talk about loans, subsidized loans and things of – I'm not saying that a person should resort to haram easily, but not all forms of insurance are alike. There are mutual insurance models. They're not perfect. You look through the companies, you'll find some. I'm certainly not going to name a company right now. You can Google it because I'm not going to go on record endorsing a commercial insurance company. But there are mutual insurance companies as opposed to stock insurance companies. There is no doubt that mutual insurance companies are closer, are closer to what Islam permits and the spirit of what Islam legislated in regards to taking care of people. One question that comes by the way, because this is something that's also very likely to take place and it's increasing because of its frequency. What about warranties on a product that you buy? I don't want to get too much in the halal and haram, but let's say that you buy a MacBook and Apple offers you a five-year warranty. Is it permissible or not permissible? The scholars permit that. Why? Because gharar is the secondary quality of it. It's basically a benefit from the seller that he will guarantee the functionality of the product he's giving you. And that's a benefit that you can pay for, a secondary benefit you can pay for. However, what's not permissible, just so you can understand the distinction between the two, is when a third party comes in and sells you a warranty on that product. Because the asset itself is the risk and the uncertainty then. So you might go on like Amazon or you might go on one of these things and someone else will serve as the warranty provider.
And that's not permissible from an Islamic perspective. So there are a few articles that I'd have you read. One of them, Dr. Hatem Al-Hajj has a good primer, The Question of Insurance. So you can look up Dr. Hatem Al-Hajj's work called The Question of Insurance. There's another article from Hania Masood in the U.P.A.N. Law Journal. Her name is Hania Masood and she wrote Takaful, An Innovative Approach to Insurance and Islamic Finance. Takaful, An Innovative Approach to Insurance and Islamic Finance. It's in the U.P.A.N. Law Journal and her name is Hania Masood. H-A-N-I-A, last name M-A-S-U-D. And then finally, Sheikh Joe Bradford has a paper that was published by Harvard. And I think it's a really interesting paper and I'll tell you why. But the name of the paper is Fatwa and its Role in Regulatory Capture. Fatwa and its Role in Regulatory Capture. Now Joe Bradford, may Allah reward him, he writes a lot on these contemporary things. He's even written already, he's ahead of the game on the cryptocurrency and some of these things. So you can look up a lot of these. I generally recommend him on a lot of these Islamic finance questions as they're coming up because they're very unique and well-rooted perspectives. But Fatwa and its Role in Regulatory Capture, what I really appreciated about that is he's talking about how Takaful, Takaful in many of these Islamic countries is basically duplicating or it's replicating commercial insurance in its nature but just repackaging things. So the spirit of it is the exact same thing which is why it becomes a multi-billion dollar industry. What's important here is that it's not about the repackaging in the names but it's about the ethics that are supposed to be infused as well and that's something that we should be thinking about.
As someone who has a background in Islamic finance, I can tell you that the majority of it is repackaging, not actually reimagining things at their very substance, at their very core, but just repackaging things and renaming things and shifting things here and there. But there's no change in the essence of it as well. So he talks about its role in regulatory capture, he talks about how at the end of the day you have profiteering taking place in these Takaful models that are government run but there are beneficiaries and the spirit of it has not changed. So there's a quote at the end of it which I really do like. He said, what is needed is not more Islamization but better use of Islamic law to create equitable, just and fair markets for all stakeholders. So it's not just a matter of repackaging things to where they look halal on paper. But it's actually coming up with or fulfilling ethical values, doing our best to capture that spirit and how Islam looked at ensuring people in the sense of mutual cooperation, in the sense of protecting our communities and communities. So I think that's a really important point. How ensuring people in the sense of mutual cooperation, in the sense of protecting our communities and protecting our vulnerable as exposed to exploiting them which is done in the commercial models as they exist today. So I hope I didn't just boggle your mind because I skipped over. I mean I'm skimming through long pages of notes that I took because I don't want to make it an Islamic finance lecture but I do want us to just sort of get a view of Ghara. This is the last finance lecture in the 40 Hadith. So the next 16 have no finance component to them. Although you always follow the money as we said. So inshallah ta'ala I will go ahead and open it up for questions now.
I hope you guys avail yourselves of those three pieces of reading that I mentioned at the end. Wa min Allahi tawfiq.
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