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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Islamic Business Ethics Your Customers ================= A. Sanctity of Property Islam has put great emphasis on the sanctity of property (mal) and its ownership. No one has the right to take the property, money or labor of another person without his permission. Allah says, “O you who believe!

Do not devour your property among yourselves falsely, except that it be trading by your mutual consent.” (4:29) “Mutual consent” is the crucial means for the exchange of any commodity or service between two persons. A “Muslim”, in the ethical sense, is “one from whose hands and tongue other Muslims are protected”.[^1] Protection from "hands" does not only mean protection from physical harm, it also includes protection from theft.

This sanctity of the property (mal) is not just for Muslims; it includes the non-Muslims also. There is a very well-known law in the shari' a which says that the mal of the al-kafir al-harbi has no sanctity.

( Al-kafir al-harbi means a non-Muslim who is at war against Islam and Muslims, and thus is not covered by any agreement with a Muslim government.) Some Muslims who have migrated to the West use this law concerning al-kafir al-harbi as an excuse to steal, whenever the opportunity avails itself, the property of the non-Muslims.

I have always strongly discouraged this behavior based on two reasons: Firstly, on a social level, living as minority, a Muslim's actions reflect on the community at large; therefore, one should not do so. Secondly, on a personal level, greed is a dangerous moral disease that pushes one to commit such acts. By committing such acts, one starts to lose the sense of respecting the property of other people: today it is the non-Muslim; tomorrow it will be the non-practicing Muslim!

More importantly, not all non-Muslims are al-kafir al­harbi. Besides al-kafir al-harbi, there are three other categories of non-Muslims: Al-kafir adh-dhimmi : a religious minority citizen of a Muslim government. Al-kafir al-mu’ahid : a non-Muslim whose government has a treaty with a Muslim government. Al-kafir al-mutahayid or al-kafir al-musta'min : a neutral non-Muslim who is neither fighting against Muslim nor covered by a treaty.

Non-Muslims in the West are either al-kafir al-mu 'ahid or al-kafir al-mutahayid, al-musta'min - and the life and property of such non-Muslims are as sacrosanct as that of the Muslims.