Social consequences of a religion?

Hi! Crass, this is a good start. Probably the general discussion subforum would be appropriate.   

rookaiya wrote: its sad that a non muslim shop will give u guarantees and will be willing to give u after sales services and will look into complaints and stuff.

I am sorry to hear what happened to you. I am probably not saying anything new if I tell you that this could have happened with any business.

rookaiya wrote: its sad when money becomes the root of evil and its people like this that give muslims a bad name. i have now left the matter in the hands of Allah. may justice be done.

Rookaiya, in this case, we may decline to attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by st**idity or maladministration. He probably didn't know the lounge suit would turn out to be bad, and he may not have been able to return it to the wholesaler or to the factory. So, he chose the easy way out, and left the buck with you, since you are probably the weakest party in the whole story.

Apparently, he is building up a bad reputation for his shop. The problem that you have with him, may very well be part of entire pattern that alienates not only you from his business. Sooner or later, that will affect his business.

In the One God I trust. And in nothing else. It is safe to assume that everything else will tend to go wrong. So, I expect dealings to go wrong, with Muslims too.

You've probably tried to put all possible additional pressure on him to refund you.

You may try to get the furniture back, keep the partial refund, and have the furniture repaired, if it can be repaired? That may be an alternative solution... Or there may still be another alternative solution that doesn't involve to get more money back, but still improves your situation.

Ok. In the future, how can I avoid such thing to happen? Let's assume I want to buy furniture. I assume that it will fall apart and be of no good quality. I think this is the correct starting point. It will be no good. I just don't believe it. My fundamental beliefs are strictly limited to the One God. This seller is not the One God, so I cannot believe him. So, it is up to the seller to take away some of my distrust in his furniture, because I assume it will fall apart. I don't need to tell him that, because I don't want to offend him, but that is what I think.

How can he take away some of my distrust? Not by asking me to believe him anyway. I cannot believe him, because I only believe in the One God, so how can I believe him? Therefore, he must come up with some other evidence than simply asking me to believe what he says. He says it is good furniture. How does he back up these claims? The more  information independent from him, he can produce to back up these claims, the more unlikely he is just making this up to make a sale.

Can I believe someone's claims? Preferably not. The more there is at stake, the less I can believe someone's claims.

A good furniture seller will tell me, for example, that there are 17 quality claims that a good piece of furniture has to satisfy. The furniture he is selling, safisfies these 17 claims, because he can demonstrate one by one that each claim is true. You can see this confirmed, preferably independently. Another furniture seller will tell me that there 15 such claims, which correspond more or less to the 17 I've heard before, and he can also demonstrate one by one that these claims are true.

It is always a good idea to ask the seller why his furniture is good, and someone else's furniture is bad, because then you also get a better idea why his furniture is bad.

The solution is not to believe in brand names, even though brand names may have a vested interest in spreading a reputation for good quality. Any unsuspecting belief in something else than the One God will invariably turn out to be wrong and eventually be abused. Therefore, even reputable brands have to prove their claims. The more something that is not the One God, is being generally trusted, the more dangerous it will eventually turn out to be.

I assess if I can make the decision to buy, given the amount at stake, the risk I are willing to take, and knowing that it may turn out the wrong way anyway. And really, it often still does.

Where do all the nightmarishly difficult customers go shopping? That is where I like to shop too. I don't need to repeat my distrust, because the sellers already know, and they are prepared, and they know that I can only convinced by seeing a sufficient number independently verifications of their claims.

The internet is often not a bad place for finding out what the verifiable claims are, if they have been verified, by whome, checked by whom, et cetera.

By the way, I don't like the government to be involved in all of that, because they are potentially even worse than everybody else.

The problem is that other people are often easier believers than I am. So, the seller will prefer to sell to someone who can be convinced more easily than myself. This is a problem. I constantly try to reduce my beliefs in other things than the One God, while other people may happily accept to increase these beliefs, because life it easier in that way, until these unwarranted beliefs eventually fire back, of course.

So, sometimes I am pushed into believing things against my will, and to hide my disbelief, in order to get along, but I really don't like that. So, for these reasons, once in a while, I also end up in a similar situation you unfortunately got dragged into.

rookaiya wrote: my whole point in this is that muslims are supposed to be honest and trustworthy. we have the Prophet Muhammad PBUH as our example.

How can anybody know who is muslim and who is not? Someone could give the impression he is, while he isn't, and the other way around.

That may amount to attaching faith to external signs, and believe that someone who dresses in a particular way, will obey particular rules. This can be a dangerous belief. That person is indeed conveying the message that he will obey particular rules. Such message is much more trustworthy, however, if someone else or many other people independently convey that message to you about that person.

rookaiya wrote: today, i support many non muslim shops and outlets. its not cos im a traitor to my fellow muslims, but its encounters like these that make me feel that its sometimes wiser to do business with a non muslim.

I would go muslim shops anyway, and ask them to produce "verifiable claims". The more people do that, the more these shops will start asking this from their own suppliers.

Which is exactly what is needed, because he obviously did not make the faulty furniture by himself, but he got it from his supplier.

rookaiya wrote: u have a guarantee and should anything go wrong, they are willing and able to help you, even refund u if necessary.

To make this work, these shops would need to deposit money with an independent third party, who will judge a problematic case, and make a guarantee payment if necessary. As long as this independent third party is not the government, I think it is not a bad idea to pester shops with questions like: Does anybody back up your guarantees?

If the government runs such scheme, they will simply find a way to run off with the money, and make hardly any payments at all. So, it has to be someone else.

rookaiya wrote: yet with some of our fellow muslims, one is afraid to part with their money cos once the deal is sealed, u one your own. they dont care what problems u encounter and are unwilling to help.

Ok. Ask the next Muslim shop you visit: How can you conclusively demonstrate to me that you will not run off with the money once the deal is sealed? If the answer doesn't please you (for example, "because I say so"), then you could even suggest that too, and ask them to find a better way to convince you.

rookaiya wrote: im not gonna generalise and blame all muslim business men based on this one man, but generally where i live (SOUTH AFRICA), muslims have a bad reputation when it comes to business. they are seen as money hungry and dishonest and this paints islam in a very dim view especially to non muslims.

Anybody can read the Quran and the Sunnah. It is very unlikely that bad business practices are endorsed anywhere in the scriptures. So, nobody can blame these on Islam.

By being a constructive shopper, you can encourage the shop owners to become better. I know some shop owners don't like that, so I always try to be careful, when doing that, but I think the principle is ok.

rookaiya wrote: as muslims we should take heed of this, especailly when we do business.

The muslim shop who sold you the furniture obviously got ripped off by his own supplier. I see the problem of not backing you up, as weakness, rather than malice. I doubt he wanted this situation to arise. He just did not live up to what was reasonably expected from him.

Even his own answer to the question "What will you do, if this furniture falls apart within weeks?" can be revealing. I know shop owners don't like this kind of questions, but I would be interested in his answer anyway. It must have happened before, and he obviously reacted to that in some way. In what way?

salaams

the only reason why i would attack the behaviour of my fellow muslim is because i expect better behaviour from him or her. as muslims we are supposed to be honest and trustworthy. its a shame that a muslim will do business this way with a fellow muslim or even non muslims for that matter. where are our priorities. for someone to be so untrustworthy, yet go for hajj, and have people cursing u becos of your business dealings. that is not acceptable at all. for me all hell did break loose cos i dont expect such behaviour from my fellow muslim. i dont and i wont condone it either.