Taking into consideration the basic rules of Islam to make e-commerce, it might look very appropriate and very wise, since those rules are basically the main logical path to follow when making business with anybody, through any mean, no matter the religion, culture or believes of the counterparty.
Such rules are included in the research paper “E-Commerce from an Islamic perspective”1, which make an emphasis on the legacy of the e-commerce in the Islamic religion; and therefore, named the following statements:
- Before starting the contract, both parties need to be present, or have a delegated; and the seller must prove that the product exists in the market.
- During the process of the negotiation, there are some things that are prohibited: charging interests, because it is considered as usury; uncertainty (not knowing well what is to be taken); fraud, duress and/or gambling.
- When implementing the negotiation or contract, the seller must be to real owner of the subject of the contract and this must be free from liabilities.
- Signing the contract by the parties, after verifying the real existence of the company, since it was only known through the website.
- Finally, when exchanging the payment and product, the first one should not be made with credit card, because it goes against the principle of no usury.
Following the previous, one might believe that there is no need to make such statement, since most of those rules are from common sense and people from all around the world should know that when making business online. However, the reality is different; most people have little knowledge when practicing this kind of business, and sometimes they might fall into traps causing them a great lose of money and many times, a loss of their good name.
Therefore, I believe that this rules shouldn’t be taken into account by the Muslims themselves, but by everyone in the world who is engaging a negotiation through the internet (electronic commerce); in order to avoid a fraud.
References:
1. Zainul, N., Osman, F. and Mazlan, S.H. (2004). E-Commerce from an Islamic perspective. International Islamic University Malaysia: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
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-"Common sense is the least common of all senses"- H.Greele
ResponderEliminarIn western culture values change every few miles, the same as religious believes and how to do things. Even if this diversity is our most representative quality, it has an issue: like we dont do this kind of things in the same way, and we don't have the same values as core ones, we have to read huge contracts, and sign a thousand times on it so we can trust in the person in the other PC Screen.
We could save a lot of time and boring readings if we only had that not-so-common-sense or at least a set of common values to have as a reference for these transactions.