01-13-2005, 01:48 AM
No doubt that boycotting Israeli and American products is a religious obligation as well as a necessary human procedure to repel the aggressors, and it is a basic form of Jihad (i.e. economic Jihad). But it should never be viewed as an end, but a means to an end. To make it effective, we need to study all its economic aspects. We need to find answers to the following questions: Do we really need to apply this method? Will boycott have any impact on the Jewish State and the US for them to change their policy as regards the Palestinian issue?
If we say yes to the above questions, we need to know how to orientate people towards the intended policy in order to attract active and positive reactions from individuals as well groups.
It stands to reason that boycotting Israeli and American products have a very negative effect on the economy of the enemy just as it will help in pushing forward the wheel of national economy, even on the long run.
Dealing with the issue in detail, Dr. Hussein Shihata, Professor of Islamic economy at the Faculty of Commerce, Al-Azhar University, states the following:
First of all, I’d like to stress the fact that economic boycott is a religious obligation. It is a form of sincere obedience to Allah and His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). Muslim jurists have also agreed that it is a necessity. Every Muslim, who really believes in Allah and His Messenger, should believe -in the depth of his heart- that the boycott is an act of worship or `Ibadah dedicated to Almighty Allah. This form of `Ibadah is not a binding formal decision issued by a statesman or a ruler, although the rulers and the subjects should cooperate to make the boycott much more effective.
If it happens that those at the helm oppose the boycott for a certain unknown reason, then this is not a pretext to abnegate Muslims from the responsibility of boycotting the enemy’s products.
I would like to state here that peoples have successfully taken an active role in boycotting the enemy’s products, even in the face of the opposition staged by their rulers. We cannot ignore the fact that individual Muslims, not rulers, are directly involved in boycotting the enemy’s products, because the individuals are directly involved in buying and selling. Hence, the Muslim who is eager to buy a certain product should first ask himself whether the commodity he is going to buy is a national commodity, produced in an Arab and Islamic country or not. With this intention, the Muslim will be rewarded.
However, if the Muslim follows his own whims and turned his back to national products, then he is considered a traitor to Allah’s Trust and His Messenger. Above all, such person has committed a serious sin of backing the enemy against his fellow Muslim brothers and their interests.
To call a spade a spade, I'd like to draw our attention to the results already yielded by the boycott, contrary to what some people think. The boycott has brought fruitful results to the extent that the estimated losses of the Jewish State have reached 100 billion US dollars, and the estimated monthly losses are about 460 million US dollars. So many US companies who suffered the nagging woes of the boycott have begun their pressure on the American government to reconsider its hostile policy against Arabs and Muslims.
It is not something strange to see Zionist and American firms rushing to wash their hands off the policy carried out by the States and the Jews in the Middle East, and circulating leaflets with which they deny having link with Zionism.
It is no wonder to see some American and Israeli companies declaring a strategy to finance the Muslim Pilgrimage to Makkah, for Hajj and `Umrah. In addition to that, package of financial aids was provided by these companies to Qur’anic schools in an attempt to attract sympathizers to their side. Not only that, but some of those companies are trying to make bargain with some of the syndicates and NGOs that champion the boycott in order to write off their names from the list of firms that are boycott targets.
In a nutshell, I can say that boycotting the enemy’s products is an effective weapon. It is the responsibility of individuals, peoples, governments as well as the responsibility of the whole Muslim Ummah. It is an individual obligation or Fard `Ayn and peoples have to take the issue seriously because boycotting is done, by and large, purely for Allah’s Sake. Any act a Muslim does solely for Allah’s Sake will be generously rewarded for it.