Why The World’s Most Successful Companies Copy Islam

I'm telling you, people may not realize this, but many of these major corporations study Islam.

The biggest companies in the world, they understood this.

And this is very important for a business. Be very careful who you go into business with. They used to cheat. They would rip them off. Now why was there such a successful business model in this partnership between, between, between. The professor, he said, if you want to talk about core business concept of reputation, look no further than the prophet Muhammad.

Was he Muslim?

No.

There's a saying, if they don't respect the Lord of the world, how do I expect them respect me?

It's true. But also, don't be fooled by.

Welcome to a new episode. In today's video, we are speaking about Omar IBN Al Hatam, who not only was a business owner, but was also structuring partnerships 100%.

Subhanallah is no doubt one of the favorites of the sahaba across the board. Anybody who studies the sahaba loves Amr Khattab, a man of strength, a man of dignity, a man of honor, a man of principle, a man who set up many of the, of the platforms that the world runs on today. The first one to set up police patrols, the first one to set up a hamana or trust, Bayt ul Mal, first one to set up roads and structure and a fund to take care of that in a general position. Amazing, right? The one who developed Islamic calendar, the Hijri calendar, so much that he did, people don't realize about his business acumen pre Islam. Now, Umar IBN Khattab originally used to herd camels for his aunts and for his family. And he wasn't very successful at it, unlike Aba Karadian who was a cloth salesman and so on.

But it's interesting how they all had different businesses. They were all business owners first of all, but then they had their own business.

Of how early on as he speaks about himself in hadith, that he would take the camels out to graze and at times he would lose camels and his family would get very upset with him. And Al Khattab, his father was a very brutal and harsh man who would, I mean, be very abusive with Umar. But Umar Radian became very strong and principled through that time. When he was at a point that, that he became a Muslim, he changed his priorities and from being a part of other people's businesses, he started to want to do his own business. But Umar Radian then switched. After the hijra, he developed a partnership with an Ansari Sahabi. This authentic hadith And a beautiful hadith where he said to the Sahabi, he said, look, I want to benefit from the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. And you want to benefit from the Prophet sallallahu. And I want to always be there to hear every single word from the blessed mouth of the Prophet, memorize every ayah, remember every hadith, and so do you. But we won't be able to because we need to feed our family.

Yeah, we're busy with work and business.

Exactly. So let's make a partnership. And this is very important for a business to have partnership and trust. Now they, the ansar were farmers. So now Amr pivoted his business because in Mecca it wasn't farming. It was either business or any trade and so on, or animal husbandry, meaning camels and sheep and so on. Right. But Madinah was different. So he pivoted his business and he developed a trust model with this Ansari. He said, okay, we'll go into a business project together on a farm and we'll work 50 50. So one day you work and I will sit with the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and learn everything I can. And that night when I get back, I will teach you everything I learned.

Okay.

The next day you go and be with the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. I will work. And that night you come back and you teach me. Exactly.

Subhan Allah. So they get the best of both worlds. They both work.

And that's a beautiful idea of partnership here. You know, when we talk about as Muslims we need to work together, let's say you're doing dawah and I'm doing dawah. Let's do this. You go when you're doing da', wah, I'll take care of the business and I'll take your financials. When you come back, you can take care of the business and I can do dawah. Something that we have implemented in our masjid ourselves. Right. Instead of having just a paid imam that's always having problems with the board, what we did is we said, okay, we'll have three people who are going to lead the salah. All three of them will not get paid by the masjid, but the community will get them work. That is going to be easier than if they were working full time because

they're busy with the messages.

Exactly. So what we did, we got one of the imams a job in doing security. Right. So, okay, so the brother who owns his own security company A Muslim brother. He said, look, he's an imam, he needs to lead salah. I'm going to make him the manager for my security company. So he doesn't need to be there

all the time, he doesn't need to put as many hours, but he can still make enough money to support his family.

Exactly. So he can go lead those two, three salahs a day and then he can work fewer hours and he can get paid better. Now he's independent. It's a partnership, it's business.

Yeah, you give this, but you get this in exchange.

Exactly. And then the other shaykh, one of the store owners said in the opposite hours he can come work at my store, he can manage my store. He's a trustworthy person. We trust him. He's an imam, he's a qari. So now when it's big money that needs to be moved goes to the bank, needs to be picked up, I trust him. So I will make him in charge of that. And now he will work four hours a day, get paid for as if he was working eight the rest of the time using the masjid. Now trust and partnership today can work very well. And this is something we learned from Umar IBN Khattab.

It's the same story, it's the same concept that he was doing before.

Exactly.

You know what's beautiful about both stories is that in both stories it's people who own a business or have wealth that aid those who are doing dawah or spreading Islam. Subhanallah.

Yes.

In the other scenario, Umar Al Khattab had a business and would send the Ansari to study while he was taking care of business.

Yes.

And vice versa. And same scenario for yourself in your masjid. The brother who owns the security company, he might not be as much involved in terms of leading in the masjid of course, but he would share the reward as well. Thanks to him, the brother can now go and eat in the masjid.

100%.

That's beautiful.

That is so beautiful. And this is something that in business, these brothers that I'm talking about that I personally know have been very successful with it because Allah put that baraka in it. Now Umar IBN Khattab as well, interestingly, he from such a partnership without having great wealth, accumulated a lot of wealth because Allah blessed his partnership even though

he was working, quote unquote, part time, one day working, one day not working, they had to split the wealth.

Exactly.

So out of 30 days, because they both work part time, it's the equivalent of only one person working because they're splitting the time.

It's basically 15 days.

Subhan Allah.

But they're getting such baraka that. Remember the hadith we talked about earlier about giving? In tabuk, he gave 50% of his wealth and it was more than 100%. So that tells you, even though this is not even big business, he's not out there going to Syria or Yemen at the time or the trade. He's farming, and he's farming half the time. But he's got such baraka in it from the trust that he's built that his wealth has gone to that level. And even at that level, he's giving so much, Sadaqah, so much that he's giving out for the sake of Allah. Subhana wa ta' ala that half of his wealth is being given. Allah is still increasing his wealth.

Subhanallah. How can people use this and apply this in today's world, specifically with partnerships when they want to benefit both in terms of business as well as spreading Islam and making dawah?

Well, this is the great point. Many of the Talab illum that come and ask us for advice, hey, I want to go study. Give me some advice. One of the first advice I give them is have an independent means of sustenance. Many brothers, I know that we're going to go study. We help them set up, you know, an online business where it could sell thiab, like the North African thiab, or, you know, other things like this. Or they can set up businesses, tutoring and things so they can have a venue of income coming in and not be, you know, okay, stressed out about that. And then when they graduate, they can also have income and they can work together with trust. Now, one of the things about Umar IBN Khattab Radian is they had that trust. There were other people in that area, Banu qaynuqa, banu nadir, and, you know, Qurayda. And if you know who they are, then you know who they are. And if you don't know who they are, let's just say they run the banking system today, right? And those people used to work with the ansar before Islam even, because they lived in that area. But they were not trustworthy. They used to cheat. They would rip them off. They would take dates when they, you know, from the farm before they were ready. Now, why was there such a successful business model in this partnership between the Ansari and Umar IBN Khattab? Because of the trust and honesty. So now if I'm there studying and you're taking I'm not worried about, oh, you know, while he's there, is he kind of stifling some of the products?

He was actually also giving him everything. And he was in charge of taking care of his family. If he didn't do the job properly, both families wouldn't eat.

Exactly.

He was sacrificing his family and putting it into the other brother's trust.

Trust, partnership. So in business, be very careful who you go into business with. When you go into business with somebody else, brother, you need to be able to trust that brother.

What would you look out for if

somebody isn't good with Allah? Subhanahu wa ta'. Ala, they will not be good with the mahluk subhanallah.

There's a saying, if they can't, if they don't respect the Lord of the world, how do I expect them to respect me?

It's true. But also don't be fooled by apparent piety. Right? Meaning if you see somebody and they apparently look very pious, that doesn't mean that their inside matches their outside.

How would you see it though?

And this is what Ramar Rabn Al Khattab has a beautiful statement. A man was speaking to a credit, another man, meaning somebody asked about somebody. Some of the said was regarding any getting married and so on. And somebody is applying to get married, then you're supposed to speak the truth about them, right? So another man was saying, you know, this person's a good man. And this, and this Umar Radian, he was very intelligent. He had farasa, he had foresight, he could see things, he could evaluate people really well. So he told him, how can you say he's a good man? Have you traveled with him? The man said, no. He said, have you done business with him? He said, no. He said, have you had relations like family, like, you know, where you're in the same family structure or marriage or this? He said no. He said, if you haven't, then don't accredit him.

You don't know this person.

You don't know this person. And that's why I advise people. If somebody comes and says, I want to marry your daughter, I tell them, you know what, don't just be like, okay, what's your job? What do you look like? Do you pray? Right? Tell them, let's go on a trip together, okay?

Because you travel together, you get to

know them, you travel together. When you travel with somebody, you get to know them. Yeah. You get to see them in good

times, bad times, see how they react with people, even simple things. When you travel, you would see how they speak with the waiter, for example.

Yeah. How do they deal with stress?

Yep.

You know you're about to miss your flight baggage, get lost.

Do they panic and they get. Yep.

Can they handle, do they lose their temper? Right. It's very important that you get to know the real person, not the image they put out. Right. Because when you go for an interview, you're putting a fake image out. That's why I tell sisters as well, don't trust these online profiles and brothers as well. Not only you got filters, you got images. Any guy who goes on a date, and of course it's haram to date. But just to give an idea, he's not going to go out there and be like, yeah, by the way, I've got these, you know, mental health issues and I got a temper.

No.

He's going to be like, I love everything about you. And I'm just, I just love little petting little cats and all day I just loves and hearts. Right. But that's not the real person. Yeah.

You have to put them under certain conditions that makes it uncomfortable so that they reveal who the real person is. So travel, business or if it's family

relationships, relations like neighbors even. Right. If you're a neighbor to somebody or if you're married, somebody who's related to them and now you see them, how they deal with their family in the back end and so on. Let's say me and you want to do business together. Let's go on Umrah trip together before we do business. Just go on a trip together. Right. Spend 10 days. Now I'm going to see you when you're in the haram and how you are acting. I'm going to see you in the restaurant and how you treat workers. I'm going to see you and you know, do you get up in the night and go to the haram and pray fajr there or do you sleep

over and Ms. Fajr?

Are you missing Fajr because you want to get to the five star buffet? Right. This is where you get to know somebody, you know, when they stand with you in good and bad and hardships. Hardships and, and ease. That's the person you want to go into business with.

That's the person you want to partner with.

Exactly.

That applies not just for business because as you mentioned, when you want to get married, it's, it's just in partnerships. Just like a business is a partnership, just like getting married is a partnership. You mentioned if you travel, if you do business with them or if you have family relationships. So basically it sounds like if you spent enough time so that they are, they can't, they can't hold that image anymore.

They have to reveal the mask is taken.

Now you see who they really are.

Exactly.

Subhanallah.

And when you do that, you can then have trust. Because, like, for myself, I don't do business a lot of people. And if I do business with you and you, I have to trust you to the level that if you come back to me and say, you know, the million dollars that we were having, ants ate it, and if I can't trust you enough to be like, then it must be the ants, then I don't need to do business with you.

Yeah. And you can use the same examples you shared before. For example, if that brother who said the ants ate the million dollars, but that same brother is the brother who sleeps over for Fajr to go to the buffet. Did the ants really eat a million dollars?

Then I wouldn't even deal with them over a million dollars. Right, exactly right. But a brother who will say, you know what? We lost this money. I'm just going to pay it from my own pockets because I don't want to, you know, be responsible for in front of Allah. Subhana, that's a brother, you know what? Let's do business together. Right. Because then I know that he's fear standing in front of Allah on the day of judgment.

And some people believe that in today's world, it's impossible to be successful if you're honest about everything you do. They would say your competitors will take your clients.

That's absolutely not true. And I think clients or customers are smarter than people think they are. Right. If I'm doing business and I see somebody's trying to, you know, juke me or fake me or, you know, rip me off, and I see somebody else that, you know is trying. Yeah, 100%, I want to go with them that they're trying.

Even if he has less experience.

Even if he has less experience, even if his products not as good. Because I don't want to sit there and have to second guess everything that they did. Is this true or not? You know, I, you know, like, like I said, if you're, if you're gonna buy something and the pictures on Timor and things are amazing and, you know, they've got all these fake reviews and all that, and then you see somebody else that maybe on another platform that's more expensive, that's, you know, the pictures may not be as Good. But it looks like that they have really done business and they really are willing to take care of their customers 100%. I'll take that over even if I got to pay more because that's the price for comfort.

And that's what we also see the big companies do. The biggest companies in the world, they understood this.

I'm telling you. People may not realize this, but many of these major corporations and worldwide Fortune 500 kind of companies study Islam. They know the Quran. You know, I'll give you one story about myself. I was taking a business class in San Diego State University and the professor, when I walked into Thawman, like just the way I'm dressed here I was sitting. When he looked at me during the class, he said, if you want to talk about a core business concept of reputation, look no further than the Prophet Muhammad.

And was he a Muslim? No, that was a non Muslim business teacher.

That was a man who told you to turn to the prophet of the Jewish faith, Subhanallah. And you know what he said? He said, how was a man in a desert able to grow following such? He said, because of his honesty and his trustworthiness even before his claim for prophethood. So when we finished the class, I went to him, I spoke to him, I said, you know, I really appreciate what you said and this. And he said, look, I'm not saying it for you. I believe in this. I believe. So I gave him da'. Wah. I told him, do you know? And he didn't want to be Muslim. He said, look, this is my family, this is my tradition. But he said, I've read the Quran, I've read the life of the Prophet Muhammad, and I can tell you that every person in my class could benefit from reading it.

That was amazing. What's the summary? So they can walk away with.

Summary is you, bro.

Okay, so summary. If you want to do business, if you want to be successful in business and make sure you can stay long term in business, make sure you're always honest and trustworthy, specifically when doing partnerships. And if you want to make sure you can walk into a partnership being comfortable and knowing the person would be honest, you can have three ways of figuring out if they're honest and you can do partnership with them. The first way is traveling with them. That makes them uncomfortable and that reveal their real self. The second way is doing business with them. That would put them in certain situations where they would see money, they would see certain clients, they would see pressure and would have to deal with it. And you'd get to see how they behave. And the third way is if you're. You live with them, that your family lives with them. If they're neighbors with you, you spent enough time to see their habits. Maybe you saw them behave when. No, when they were thinking, no one saw them. And that allows you to see their true self and see if you can trust them. And that was an amazing episode. Come back tomorrow for another episode, inshallah.