Islamic Business Ethics

Ethics has always been a part of business. The article of Islamic Business Ethics & Finance: An Exploratory Study of Islamic Banks in Malaysia written by Muhammad Adli Musa studied about how Islamic finance which claims to offer global financial stability and high ethical standards should reflect Islamic values in all facets of behaviour to bring about collective morality and spirituality, which when integrated with the production of goods and services advance the Islamic way of life. This paper also attempts to investigate the consistencies or, if any, inconsistencies and explore the relationship between the Islamic business ethical norms and the practices of Islamic banks in Malaysia. In doing so it tries to address the current imbalance of emphasis and the lack of a comprehensive discussion on business ethics from a wider cultural and religious perspective with reference to Islam, particularly focussing on selected Islamic banks in Malaysia. The main research question of this study is how do the current practices in Malaysian IFIs mirror the Islamic ethical norms in business? The findings in this paper would potentially assist in the improvement of practices among IFIs to conform to the ethical norms established by Islam, which are in fact the core of their existence.
For Muslims, Islam is considered as a way of life and not merely a religion. Hence, business ethics cannot be separated from ethics in other aspects of a Muslim’s daily life. It is claimed that in the climate of Islamic philosophy, it is ethics that dominate economics and not vice versa, and that Islamic economics is characterized as being ethical besides being Godly, humane and balanced. The concept of Tawḥid has been identified as the core of Islamic ethics, along with trusteeship or stewardship, justice or equilibrium, free will or freedom, responsibility and generosity. On a more practical level, the manner for proper Islamic ethical conduct in business is based on leniency, which