Today, there are many financial products offered in the market catering to the individual’s preparation plan to protect themselves or their loved ones from financial shocks due to undesired event. For Muslims, these financial products include a variety of takaful protection schemes, inheritance instruments and others.
In promoting these financial products, one should not use fearmongering techniques aggressively until it is seen as contrary to the original principles that made up the products. Although the initial intention is to raise awareness for some issues, the techniques may lead to confusion on some Islamic jurisprudence.
For example, the Islamic jurisprudence on faraid. Some advertising shared for example that if one Muslim does not take a particular financial product, the individual will leave his or her family in suffering as the property will be divided according to faraid—as the faraid prosecution takes some time, the absence of ‘stopper’ heir (son) and others.
Such marketing techniques can cause misunderstanding on Islamic jurisprudence pertaining to the law of inheritance. In reality, faraid is a part of the distribution management of the deceased’s property. Faraid is also implemented after consideration of the deceased’s funeral expenses, debts, wills, jointly acquired property (acquired by husband and wife during the subsistence of marriage) and heirs whom cannot come into agreement on the value they will receive.
The provision in Islamic law of inheritance comes with a great responsibility as Allah SWT states in Quran, “Men are in charge of women by (right of) what Allah has given one over the other and what they spend (for maintenance) from their wealth.” (An-Nisa ’, 4:34). It is not a ‘free gift’ awarded just like that.
Anyone who deliberately becomes irresponsible towards his or her dependents, he or her will be punished in the hereafter. What’s more, if the individual consumes unjustly the property of orphans under his or her care, he or she will be punished by Allah SWT as Quran states, “Indeed, those who devour the property of orphans unjustly are only consuming into their bellies fire. And they will be burned in a Blaze” (An-Nisa’, 4:10).
At the same time, there are real issues in managing the deceased’s property due to the dynamics of each case. This include to get the right data of the property itself, dispute on other claims before faraid for example will and jointly acquired property, layers generation of heir, monitoring system to the new guardian and others which need to deal with different agencies thereby different bureaucracies. That is why implementation of some faraid cases can take longer time and costly.
However, we need to understand such issues does not originate from the faraid itself. Instead it occurs due to human weaknesses such as non-cooperative attitude, greedy, irresponsible and complexity of bureaucracy in the existing system. By knowing these real issues, as heirs we need to improve ourselves and the current related system so that people will then understand the wisdom behind Islamic law of inheritance and take charge accordingly. Therefore, any suggestion to solve such issues and challenges should be channelled in appropriate platforms, rather than use it in promoting specific financial products in such a way that lead to confusion about faraid.
Islam on the other hand, celebrates the good intention of individuals to manage their financial matters on the basis of care and love towards others. For example, participating in takaful protection schemes, bequeathing to adopted children, giving hibah (gifts) to spouses and parents and others. This is the true and genuine objective for Islamic financial products to exist in the market and should not be shadowed by something negative in promoting it.
We need to understand that Islamic financial planning has its own advantages and rules. The wisdom prescribed in such a way is for the benefit of all parties and as a symbol of piety to Allah SWT. In story of Saad bin Abi Waqas RA who intended to bequeath his entire property, Rasulullah SAW stated that a will is only allowed up to one third of the property since it is better to leave heir in sufficiency than to beg from others (Reported by al-Bukhari).
The same goes with the takaful protection scheme available today. It is based on the principles of ta’awun (helping each other) and tabarru’ (sincere donation) and limited to certain rules when implemented. In promoting such schemes therefore, one should not over claim the products beyond these original concepts which can cause frustration to consumers once they realize they are not benefited to some protection under the scheme.
A good financial planning should be done according to one’s ability, not based on force or trend in the market. As Muslims, we also need to understand the principles in Islamic financial products are different from conventional ones. The provision of principles and laws in Islamic matters contain great wisdom that must be learnt and it is a symbol of piety of a Muslim to The Creator.