Marketing in Islam: Principles and Practice

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam form the three Abrahamic religions that are also termed divine religions.

The Holy Quran directs Muslims to engage in trade. There is a much larger meaning to the gain that trade brought in at early times. Traders moving with goods from place to place were the only means to transfer knowledge and learn traits from far-flung areas. They were the cause of improvement in quality of life in their own local environment. Their learning would not only benefit one household but would spread to the whole community, and hence the benefit would mushroom in the entire community.

Islamic marketing is one of the management concepts where variation in disparity with contemporary marketing is much larger than many other concepts in management. The larger aim of an organization in an Islamic environment is not profit maximization, it is submission to the will of Allah, and this is further reflected down to managerial objectives as well.

“Halal” product in Islamic marketing cannot JUST be influenced by a mere want. Given the objections to extravagant spending in Islam (“Israf”), this should be fairly easy to understand. It may just be prudent at this stage to differentiate between need and want. The essential principal in the Islamic product development process is that any add-ons must refine the “quality of the product” and at all times enhance the need satisfaction of the user. Products that purely focus on “wants” do not adhere to Islamic principles, and hence are deemed inappropriate to the Islamic marketing function.

From the Islamic perspective, both pricing and branding are solely governed by the spot quality of the product. The Islamic brand must offer real value to the consumer; it may then create decent yet truthful feelings toward the product, but in all reality the value must be truly tangible.

What a perfect example to explain that; pricing in Islam is all about charging a justified price coherent to the effort in material and labour required to produce the goods/service and not huge unjustifiable profits based on brand names, because the overall aim of the business is not “just profit maximization.”

Promotion in Islamic marketing is about creating rightful awareness of the product. The keyword remains “rightful”; that is, it completely rules out the false impression created by flashy packaging, mere celebrity endorsements to manipulate buyers, use of females without necessary covering, or couples involved in offensive acts.

It is about research followed by development, need refinement, quality product, justified pricing, and promotion strategies based on raising awareness pertinent to not only the product but the need the product is going to fulfil.

 

References

Husein, U.M. (2014). Management in Islamic Countries: Principles and Practice. Business Expert Press, LLC.