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Jun
Muslim Inc. From Muslim consumer, to Muslim producer
Written by Obaid Ahmed & Sonia RiahiIslam has a long standing tradition of encouraging business and entrepreneurship. The Prophet (peace be upon him, PBUH) was a successful businessman at the age of 25 and so was his first wife, Khadijah. Much of Islam was spread, not by the sword, but through traders from West Africa all the way to Asia.
The idea of entrepreneurship is a long forgotten Sunnah (Muslim practice); Muslim communities, overall, have lost touch with our entrepreneurial history. The entrepreneur is a challenger of the status quo, someone who questions long existing assumptions and then builds the proper infrastructure needed around a solution.
Much of the current social realities Muslims face can be overcome through taking an entrepreneurial approach to solving social problems. There are currently small rumblings of a resurgence of successful Muslim entrepreneurs who are breaking through the pack and exemplifying great innovations and ingenuity. There are successful examples of Muslim run enterprises such as Edible Arrangements by Tariq Farid, an international food company specializing in fresh fruit arrangements. Or female entrepreneurs on the frontier of environmental sustainability, such as Norah Maghraby of Naqaa Sustainability Solutions, a social enterprise consulting company implementing sustainability policies in Middle Eastern-based companies. There is great potential for future growth and to leverage that, we must start supporting the growth of entrepreneurial culture within our communities.
This means not just empowering our community economically, but creating a source of creativity and innovation needed for our community to thrive. Entrepreneurship is a mindset that is essentially the art of creating more with less - to be resourceful, driven, and results-oriented. It is about being creative, teaching ourselves how to solve our own social issues and not look to others. It is about looking to our own abilities to generate community revenue, not rely on outside financing to bring our ideas to life. Entrepreneurs are always asking “How can we make this better?” Entrepreneurs are in the business of creating solutions, asking the tough questions about why something is not working like it should.
In other words, when we support entrepreneurs, our community is saying, yes, we value those who take risks, those who think differently, those who challenge the status quo. We give the incredible amount of talent within our communities a chance to flourish.
This is exactly the reason we need to further encourage ambitious leaders, emerging or established, because where entrepreneurship and innovation thrives, so does the possibility of creating a stronger Ummah (Muslim community).
This is why we, UmmahHub, have created “The Muslim Inc”. We have set out to create the #1 online community for Muslim entrepreneurs to solve this problem.
Our mission is to support entrepreneurship, innovation, and business development for Muslims worldwide by providing the best of Islamic thinking combined with modern business practices. We provide relevant discussions and solutions to help emerging and established Muslim business leaders. We want to revive entrepreneurial culture and help strengthen Islamic economies worldwide.
If you are passionate about supporting entrepreneurial culture in the Muslim community, sign up at http://themusliminc.com for first notice of our launch.
This article was produced exclusively for Muslim Link and should not be copied without prior permission from the site. For permission, please write to info@muslimlink.ca.
