I want to start by saying I am very grateful that all of you were able to make it today. 

I usually do not get nervous when I give a lecture. I am nervous today. 

Here is why. What I normally try to do is take a small subject and zoom in on it as deeply as I possibly can in the time I have. Tonight I am doing the opposite. I am trying to pack a lot of information into a very short number of hours, even though I have promised myself I am not going to rush through the material. 

So I want you mentally prepared. This is not going to be entertaining. Some of you are going to get some of the best sleep of your life tonight and I am not personally offended. I have been helping you sleep for many years. It is going to be okay, insha’Allah. 

We Reduced the Quran to Two Lenses 

Where I want to start is our relationship with the Quran. 

We hear about that all the time. We have to have a relationship with the Quran. We have to understand it, contemplate it, remember Allah through it. 

What I want to add to that conversation is this. Sometimes people think of a religious text and not just in Islam, in other religions too, as having two purposes. It has a spiritual purpose and it has a ritual purpose. They look at any religion and they reduce it to spirituality or to rituals. 

If you want to use Islamic terminology, we reduce the Quran to aqeedah or to fiqh. We think about the theological concepts in the Quran, or we think about the juristic material, the rulings, the fatawa. 

Both of those are fundamental. 

But the word of Allah is more inclusive than those two lenses. There is more going on in the Quran than that. 

We do not say out loud that those are our only two lenses. Practically, though, most of the time, that is exactly what they become. The other lenses, the ones we are also supposed to look through, go into the background. They go so far into the background that you end up with people who are extremely serious about the Quran in one way and extremely loose about it in another. 

Let me give you an example. 

There are very strong instructions in the Quran about inheritance. There are very strong indications in the Quran about how a divorce is supposed to happen. 

Now picture somebody who recites their Quran every day. They are memorizing. They are working on their tajweed. They are taking aqeedah classes, they are learning Arabic, they are praying all of their taraweeh, they are scoring perfect on the taraweeh. I’tikaf in the last ten nights of Ramadan, all of it. Umrah every year, as many times as they can manage. 

They never gave their sister her share in the inheritance. 

Or the divorce happened and it got very ugly, even though this same Quran says do not forget to do favors to each other, even at the time of a divorce.¹ 

Ironically, they will recite that ayah beautifully. They might even sit in a tafsir halaqa on that ayah. It just never translated over into that part of their life. 

From the outside, that person looks like a very serious Muslim. They are a serious Muslim. Their lens on the Quran was narrowed, so they do not see it as a problem. It is a contradiction. They are not even aware of it. 

What I want to share with you is another lens. It is still a spiritual lens, always. But we are going to look at the Quran through the lens of economics. 

How does Allah talk about the material world? How are we supposed to pursue wealth? How is trade supposed to happen? How is the economy of a country supposed to flourish? 

Because usually when we think Quran, we think deen. Then when you think banking or trade or tariffs or career, now you are talking dunya. Deen is the Quran and dunya is something else. Two separate worlds. 

But the Quran does not let us separate those two worlds. 

That is what I want to put in front of all of you and in front of myself, so that this conversation never gets separated from the conversation about the Quran. So that this becomes an inseparable part of our journey through it. 

I Am Only Getting Drops From These Oceans 

Before I start, one disclaimer. The ayat I have picked for today are by no means comprehensive. These are samplings. I am touching on subjects and every one of these subjects, for a university student at an Islamic university, could be a PhD dissertation if they dove deep enough. 

I am just getting drops from each of these different oceans. 

Fadl Just Means Extra 

Let me give you some terminology. I want you to know these key terms as they come up. 

Fadl. In Arabic, fadl literally means extra. 

If your boss gave you a bonus, that was a fadl. If your revenues came in higher than expected, that was a fadl. If you are doing more than breaking even, that margin, that benefit, is a fadl. 

Allah uses this word across the Quran in different ways. 

Even in Surah Al-Muzzammil, which is the height of spirituality, Allah says there are other people who travel long distances in the world pursuing the fadl of Allah.² Which actually means they are trying to make money by traveling and looking for new business opportunities. They are buying and selling goods, making deals, looking for ways to invest. 

That is how Allah describes them. They are pursuing the fadl of Allah. 

So how is Allah talking about the pursuit of business opportunity, the pursuit of rizq, the pursuit of fadl

Who Dares to Make the Beautiful Things Forbidden 

Allah says: who dares to make impermissible the beautiful things that Allah brought out for His servants and the good and pure things from rizq that He brought out?³ 

Meaning Allah is saying, I created gardens. I created oil and gas reserves. I created mineral resources. I created the mountains that can be mined for coal and iron ore and everything else. I created all of it. 

Then somebody comes along and says, brother, do not think about dunya. Think about your akhirah. Astaghfirullah. Just spend your time in the masjid. 

Wait. Hold on. Who dares to make impermissible the beautiful things that Allah created and brought out for the benefit of His servants? 

Allah is offended that someone is discouraging you from the gifts Allah created. 

On one hand, it is very common that when Muslims become religiously serious, they say you cannot take something haram and make it halal. They get very serious about it. That is haram, that is haram, that is haram. 

Allah is equally offended when you take something halal and try to make it look bad. Who are you to take something that Allah has no problem with and turn it into a problem? 

Taking the halal and making somebody feel like it is haram is also a crime. Just like the opposite. 

Hajj Is the Biggest Networking Event on the Planet 

You are going to hajj. The most spiritual journey of your life. You dress in ihram, which is a representation of the clothes you are going to be buried in. You are doing tawaf. You are rehearsing Judgment Day. You are leaving this world. That is the whole exercise, to show that we are here temporarily, that the real convention is Judgment Day and the convention that celebrates Judgment Day is hajj every year. 

Allah says about hajj that there is no harm on you if you pursue fadl from your Rabb.⁴ 

Think about it practically. Somebody going to hajj is traveling a thousand miles, two thousand miles. In ancient times maybe they traveled four months, five months, six months before arriving. How are they getting there without life savings? They need money. They need something to carry them all the way. 

Then they arrive and by the time they get there they are out of money. Congratulations, you made hajj. On the way back, you will starve to death. 

Allah says no, no, no. Make sure you take enough supplies and the best kind of supply is taqwa.⁵ Two meanings. Take taqwa with you and also budget your journey properly, because budgeting your journey is part of taqwa. 

Then when you get there, maybe take enough with you that you can do some buying and selling. 

Think of it this way. We have trade conventions. You have a tech conference and the tech companies are all there. Where I live in Texas we have a lot of gun shows, so the gun manufacturers all convene. There is Comic Con. Every industry has its convention. 

Who is gathered at hajj? 

Every person from every industry on earth. It is the biggest business networking opportunity on the planet. 

Allah says there is no harm that you pursue fadl from your Rabb out there. Pursue making connections. Pursue selling and buying goods. Make deals. It is okay. You did your hajj part. You can still pursue the dunya part. 

By the way, in the one place where you are supposed to forget the world, we are doing tawaf and every time we pass the Rukn we say: give us good in this dunya and good in the akhirah.⁶ Even there, Allah did not let us forget about this world.

Mata Is Utility and Enjoyment 

We are learning economic vocabulary in the Quran. 

Here is the new one. Mata has two meanings. Something to utilize, a resource. Also something to enjoy. 

Utility and enjoyment. 

Fruit has utility. It gives me vitamins and nutrients. Fruit also has enjoyment. Chicken is a good source of protein, but it also tastes good when the Koreans make it. Cars have utility, they get you from A to B. A nice car is also enjoyable. Back in the day a horse was utility. A nice horse was also enjoyment. 

Enjoyment is something that drives industry too, not only utility. 

The apps on your phone. Many of them are utility. It is a mapping device, a shopping device, whatever function it has. They still have a design team whose whole job is to make sure the user experience is enjoyable. If your user experience is not enjoyable, you delete that app and get another one that is a more enjoyable experience. 

Even the phones in your hands. They have utility and they have enjoyment. 

It is an essential term in the Quran and it occurs many times. I am giving you drops. 

Allah says there is no harm on you when you enter homes that are not lived in, meaning commercial buildings, in which there is mata for you.⁷ 

You are walking into a university. Mata for you. You are walking into a mall. Mata for you. A doctor’s office. A hospital. An accounting firm. A business office. A taxi. These are basically the commercial zones of the world. 

Allah says there is no harm when you walk into those places. You do not get to say, no, no, no, I only go home. My life is my house and the masjid, that is all I do, because I am so Islamic. More than the Quran, apparently. 

By the way, if that is the indication, is Allah not already hinting that there should be a lot of building going on, because those buildings have mata? Allah is hinting, build. You are going to have more and more utility, more and more resources to enjoy. 

This is the first of three parts and the next two cover the business mindset and the Quran’s answer to corruption. Study The Quran & the Global Economy with Ustadh Nouman Ali Khan on Bayyinah TV: Bayyinah TV 

Notes 

This post is adapted from the first session of The Quran & the Global Economy on Bayyinah TV and is written in the voice of that session. Every teaching claim, example and aside in it is taken from the session itself. The references below locate the ayat it quotes or works on. 

[1] Quran, 2:237, https://quran.com/2/237 ↩

[2] Quran, 73:20, https://quran.com/73/20 ↩

[3] Quran, 7:32, https://quran.com/7/32 ↩

[4] Quran, 2:198, https://quran.com/2/198 ↩

[5] Quran, 2:197, https://quran.com/2/197 ↩

[6] Quran, 2:201, https://quran.com/2/201 ↩

[7] Quran, 24:29, https://quran.com/24/29 ↩