Review: IslamicBusiness.sg

What is the difference between riba’ (usury) and profit? Is it haram for Muslims to pursue wealth in this world? How does one markets a product?  What is the software you would recommend to improve business productivity? (quoted from IslamicBusiness.Sg)

Do you have such questions and have you always wished that someone in the community can help clarify your questions? Brother Hafihz, an alumnus from NUS Business School, has created IslamicBusiness.Sg to help you answer your queries at the ease of a mouseclick. IslamicBusiness.Sg is a community platform for the Malay-Muslim community to share and learn about business practices and fiqh muamalat from each other. This portal touts itself as “Singapore’s first online business Syura. …a vibrant online collection of questions and answers created and shared by Malay – Muslims in Singapore interested in networking, sharing best practices and seeking proper advice from fellow Muslims on business.”

Islamicbusiness.sg? Is it meant to be non-profit?

Bro Hafihz: The idea started way back in 2008. Only in Jan 2011 did I decide to execute it because both platforms and social trends allow for the idea to be realized. It’s kind of like George Lucas doing Star Wars episodes 1 to 3 much later because the technology had evolved, only mine has to do with technology and largely social media, my own mature understanding of the subject and the growth of experts in the market. It is meant to be a non-profit.

IslamicEvents: What made you come up with such an idea?

• The need for secular people interested in business to network together in an open platform to find new solutions and share best practices.
• The need for asatizah interested in muamalat to network together in an open platform to find new solutions and share best practices.
• The need for secular people to learn the obligation and importance of learning muamalat through the issues raised on muamalat.
• The need for asatizah to learn on the best of secular sciences pertaining to business for application in mumalat (e.g. marketing in da’wah)
• Find out which needs and problems are not yet served by anyone.
• The need for a vibrant 2.0 platform where we move beyond one way blogging communication to 2 way creation. Everyone on this site can be an expert and a contributor, and there is a transparent democratization of valuing the expertise of the person via voting. The old ways of “the expert” sharing away on his blog and the rest being observers are long gone and will soon become irrelevant. Now is the age of active participation.

IslamicEvents: Why did you create this particular platform?

Bro Hafihz: A Q&A platform best serves the above motives, plus fits in terms of the resources needed plus what I can provide.

IslamicEvents: As the platform also creates opportunity for people to learn best business practices, do you forsee non-Muslims coming on the bandwagon to help out the community?

Bro Hafihz: I will take this as a form of dakwah from the website itself. This may happen if our community reflects itself well in this website.

IslamicEvents: As your portal served a niche market- The Malay-Muslims in Singapore, do you see this move as a bit narrow- especially when we are talking about best business practices, which might not necessarily come from within the community?

Bro Hafihz: The website must be niched in that manner because we are talking about best practices possible from a Muslim businessman. However aside to question 4, if non-Muslims come on board, this would surely be sometime extra ordinary on their end given the strong connotations the website name itself has. In terms of whether this is narrow, I know for a fact there are many in our community well trained in muamalat and also proper business sciences who have never had the right platform to share their knowledge but not put in too much commitment. This website is the solution for them.

IslamicEvents: How will you want to further develop the portal?

Bro Hafihz: Some ways are:

• Identifying good Q and As and compiling them into a book.
• Identifying top experts and creating workshops specific.
• Creating muamalat classes for secular muslim businessmen.
• Blog.

The nature of the site really allows for many new developments. For now however, we will focus on keeping the website clear and focused and build the critical mass needed.

IslamicEvents: Do you forsee copycats of such initiative on free websites such as Facebook? How do you aim to counter it?

Bro Hafihz: Platform wise, Facebook is not a competitor yet because:

1. One cannot search for past questions posted.
2. One cannot categorize.
3. One cannot tag by question.
4. One cannot vote on the questions.
5. One cannot market the facebook page as strongly on google as a website.

The closest platform wise is Quora. If such a critical mass develops in Quora, then I will welcome this.

It is also hard to copy as the website has a first player advantage by value, has a strong domain brand presence, has good networks already established amongst both secular and asatizah, and has the right capacity knowledge wise in business to execute it given my unique background.

IslamicEvents: Credibility or community sharing of knowledge. Which one is of utmost important to the development of the portal?

Bro Hafihz: Community sharing of knowledge. The self correcting credibility mechanism of the site will kick in once the numbers and diversity is there.

Also it’s important to note that the issue of credibility, like any other website or even offline claims, lies in the hands of the seeker.

We thank Bro Hafihz for his time & wish IslamicBusiness.sg success! Do visit http://islamicbusiness.sg/ to experience for yourself Singapore’s very first online business Syura.

Muhammad Yusuf Bin Osman is reading Sociology in his Honours year at National University of Singapore. He enjoys discussing politics and community issues over a cup of teh tarik. He is currently doing research on youth political participation in Singapore.