TÜRKİYE BUSINESS ETHICS SUMMIT ’21

GROWTH AND INNOVATION FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF BUSINESS ETHICS

GRAND CEVAHİR, İstanbul

Esteemed President and members of İGİAD,

Distinguished Panellists and Participants,

Esteemed Members of the Press,

I greet you all with my most sincere feelings, and I congratulate the association that organizes activities so that sensitivity to business ethics may increase and become widespread in every segment of society from A to Z and, from our point of view, in the business world:

the Turkish Economic Enterprise and Business Ethics Association – İGİAD, its esteemed President Ayhan Karahan and everyone who contributed to this fine organization.

This year’s topic is highly important. The importance of business ethics in hard times. All the colours of life become distinct in hard times. In hard times people’s characters come to light. In hard times friend and foe become clear. In hard times intentions are revealed.

The business world, for its part, is the place where hard times are experienced most severely and where you see who remains around you in those difficult days. Thanks be to God. We are fortunate. Both in our MÜSİAD family and in our İGİAD community there are friendships that emerged in hard times.

Distinguished guests;

As you know, the honour of carrying the MÜSİAD flag was entrusted to us a short while ago. Together with our colleagues we have begun both to shape our plans for the new term and to produce solutions for the problems our business world is experiencing in these days. As a country and as a world, we lived through the pandemic process deeply for two years. It was a period we had never experienced before. Our enterprises, our families, our social life, everything was affected in this process. Innovations that may be considered permanent entered our lives. New business models emerged.

Our business life went through a difficult period in this process. We overcame it shoulder to shoulder. That is why this session, in which we shall speak about hard times, becomes all the more meaningful in these days when we are experiencing hard times.

With your permission, I shall not give a presentation. I am not an academic; I have not carried out theoretical research on business ethics, but I have lived this process in practice. Today I shall share my experiences with you, setting out from what I have lived through. Our experience is Qard al-Hasan.

So what is Qard al-Hasan?

Qard al-Hasan means goodly loan. Appearing in five different surahs of our Holy Book, the Qur’an — Surah al-Muzzammil verse 20, Surah al-Baqarah verse 245, Surah al-Ma’idah verse 12, Surah al-Taghabun verse 17, and Surah al-Hadid verses 11 and 18 — Qard al-Hasan is expressed as a goodly loan given for the sake of God.

Qard al-Hasan, which held a fundamental place in the era of the Prophet, the Four Caliphs, al-Andalus, the Seljuks and the Ottomans, and therefore in the roots of our civilization, but which is not at present sustained in practice as an institution, is a social phenomenon.

Distributed justly and in trustworthy hands, Qard al-Hasan is an institution that can serve as a means for the reform of a corrupted social life.

Qard al-Hasan means providing the person in need and in debt, without interest and solely to earn the pleasure of God, with the sum that will meet that need, so that he may keep away from what is forbidden and not become entangled in it.

The MÜSİAD Qard al-Hasan Fund was established out of the necessity of developing and supporting the practice of Qard al-Hasan, which is upon the righteous path, in order to develop trade through lawful means by freeing ourselves from the interest-based transactions that today have entered every area of our lives.

Distinguished Guests,

The idea of transforming the culture of mutual aid and solidarity among MÜSİAD members into an institutional structure and of facilitating the trade of our merchants was the occasion for the emergence of the MÜSİAD Fund.

The MÜSİAD Fund has carried the concept of “Qard al-Hasan”, one of the fine values of our civilization, and its principles onto the agenda of today’s commercial life, and has institutionalized the practice of mutual aid and solidarity.

The fundamental aim of the “Qard al-Hasan” Fund is to be able to implement this loan relationship commanded by God and, while implementing it, to ensure that this institution becomes actively systematized in social life.

In this way it aims to increase the rate of accumulation in our country’s trade, to enable merchants to display solidarity in their difficult days, and to increase abundance by lifting from the merchant, through the “Qard al-Hasan” mechanism, the phenomenon of interest, which is one of the burdens weighing upon trade.

Indeed, after the Qard al-Hasan fund was established under the roof of our MÜSİAD, many foundations and associations established similar ones.

A Qard al-Hasan Foundation was even established. Under the auspices of the Presidency, the Department of Participation Finance was established.

All these efforts have been important steps in the development of an interest-free finance system and a culture of partnership. The welfare of society, too, is directly related to this.

For in the Qard al-Hasan system, the lender, by preventing his Muslim brother from borrowing at interest, becomes the recipient of the countless blessings God has promised. The borrower, by not paying interest, is protected from this sin, and when he works with the effort to repay his debt he becomes worthy of the prayers of our Prophet.

In our age, people turning their backs on one another, the decline of mutual aid and social solidarity, distrust and the failure to hear God’s commands have impoverished the human being spiritually.

Today, when the idea that all values can be converted into money is spreading mercilessly, the human being, the vicegerent upon the earth, is condemned to loneliness.

It is at this point that the wisdom of Qard al-Hasan becomes manifest. Muslims are not alone. They are like the limbs of a single body. Qard al-Hasan is one hand holding the other. Qard al-hasan is being united on a hard day. Qard al-Hasan is closing the ranks.

In the pandemic period alone, our fund extended qard al-hasan to many of our members and helped our producers to continue their commercial life.

As is commanded in the noble verse, “Indeed, with hardship comes ease.” Yes, the Qard al-Hasan Fund came to the aid of our merchants who fell into difficulty during the pandemic and was a lifeline for our members in distress. What could be finer than this solidarity!

I should like to dwell on the seven fundamental principles of the Qard al-Hasan Fund.

The first is the principle of brotherhood. The primary aim is not to earn money from money, but to gain brotherhood and friendship.

Its second principle is altruism; it aims at meeting the need of one’s brother in a manner far removed from selfishness.

Its third principle is confidentiality. The giving hand and the receiving hand neither see nor know each other.

The fourth principle is transparency; under this principle all transactions are documented with records.

The fifth principle is sustainability. This principle aims to prevent any disruption in the functioning of the fund and to enable it to serve over the long term.

The sixth principle is social guarantee. What is social guarantee? Financiers who know nothing other than title-deed collateral cannot understand this. Qard al-hasan does not ask for physical collateral, but it does ask for a reference from among the members of the association.

The seventh principle is the principle of conformity with fiqh. All transactions carried out are performed in accordance with the rules of fiqh. Our fund operates within the framework of these principles.

We shall continue our work in line with the principles that make this fund unique.