Journey To Understanding Finance The Islamic Way: September 2013

Islamic Banking Seminar - Faraid, 12 October 2013

9/28/2013 10:41:00 am

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Growing Your Wealth In Accordance To Islamic Syariah Law.

9/25/2013 12:37:00 am

Bismillah.

Assalammualaikum.

Here is the continuation of my previous post "Effects of Inflation On Savings". This blog entry shall be about how, we, as an individual Muslim can do our part in managing our wealth and grow it, in accordance to the Islamic Syariah Law.

First and foremost, before we start off with growing our wealth in accordance to Islamic Syariah Law, we need to understand what is the Syariah Law.

Syariah Law is a set of guidelines by Allah, to us, his faithful servants, so that Allah favours everything we do, as long as it is within the guidelines. The primary sources of Syariah are: Al-Quran and Sunnah (Practices of Prophet Muhammad's(PBUH) actions, words and approvals). Syariah Law highlights the Prohibition of Riba', Our Role and Responsibility as a Muslim and, last but not least, Wealth In Islam (Insyaallah, I will try to cover each and every points in my future blog entries, much more in detail for better understanding. Amin.).

Moving on from what we understand from the Syariah Law, lets learn about how we can manage our wealth and grow it in accordance to the Islamic Syariah Law. As we all know, we have to try our best to make everything halal, ranging from the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the money we earn and also to personal matters such as love.

How do we go about in managing our wealth and grow it in accordance to the Islamic Syariah Law?

1) Make effort to come forward and look for Syariah Compliant choices first, before opting for the Connventional option. A Syariah Compliant product do not deal with Riba', gharar (uncertainty), gambling/maisir and other Haram businesses.

2) Participate in supporting the Islamic Economy by making the first step: Open up an Islamic Bank Account. After which, you can continue by sharing the goodness of having an Islamic Bank Account, with the people around you.

3) Ask the respective bank/relationship manager that you open your Islamic Bank Account on what are the Islamic Investments that they provide.
Islamic Investments can be as follows (list may be longer for some banks):

1) Fixed Deposit
2) Sukuk (Bonds)
3) Unit Trusts
4) Takaful (Insurance)

4) Look out for seminars on Islamic Banking. They sure do cover various types of topics which is according to current context. (There is an upcoming Islamic Banking Seminar, Insyaallah, I will post it in my next blog post once it is confirmed.)

I hope I have answered the question well in this blog entry. If you have any enquiry, feel free to email me at nur.farhanah.jasni@gmail.com or FB message me. Don't forget to share, because sharing is caring. Jazakallah khairan (May Allah reward you with goodness.). In the mean time, stay tuned for my next blog entry.

Wassalam.

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Effects of Inflation On Savings

9/18/2013 11:45:00 pm

Bismillah.

Assalammualaikum!

Last few days, I was constantly being questioned by most of my clients "Is it ok to save in conventional banks?". First and foremost, I would like to share with all of you of a recent online news article from June 2013 and July 2013:

As you can see, from the headlines, Singapore is facing an increase in inflation of up to 1.8% in July 2013, which was from 1.6% in June 2013, as compared to back in 2012 when the inflation rate was 1.5%. This significant increase in inflation rate indeed affects all of us in every aspects in life, especially our savings. Why savings? Well, as all of you are aware, savings are important in our daily life. It is important to have savings to supplement our daily necessities ranging from your transportation, utilities, entertainment(f&b, shopping), family expenses and the list goes on.

What is inflation?
A persistent, substantial rise in the general level of prices related to an increase in the volume of money and resulting in the loss of value of currency. (Dictionary.com)

Why do inflation affects savings?
Inflation affects our savings especially when we have to use our savings to purchase daily necessities which are always increasing in price due to certain factors of inflation such as the rising prices of oil affects our energy consumption such as oil for our car, electricity, etc. High demand of goods and services, the prices of it, also increases.

Take for example the recent haze chaos, whereby there are high demand for face mask and low supply of the face mask causes most businesses to take this advantage by increasing the price of the mask, making it only available to be purchased by people who can really afford the high price of the face mask. Inflation causes an unfair dealing of transaction which is if an advantage for the well-to-do people, and a disadvantage for the lower income people.

Inflation causes our savings to deplete faster than usual, to keep up with the high standard of living. This in turn causes the lower and middle income, difficulty in surviving with just one job of a lower pay. Recent surveys have shown that the standard of living is too high that not only the husband' salary is not enough and therefore the wife have to also go out and work, in order to help the husband to support the family. It is a current trend whereby both husband and wife will have to work in order to sustain the high standard of living in Singapore.

In my next blog entry, I will share with all of you on "How Do We Grow Our Money In Accordance To The Syariah Law", a topic whereby it is a solution to beat against the inflation. Stay tuned! In the meantime, do feel free to email me for feedbacks or suggestions on future topics. Thank you! :)