Management in Islamic Countries

Chapter 3

Marketing in Islam

Introduction

In a weekly meeting with my director of research, we happened to reflect upon whether there is anything such as “Islamic marketing.” Her argument started from the notion of wasteful expenditure/extravagance in Islam: “Israf.” She offered her explanation on how marketing today (which in essence is contemporary marketing) focuses on consumerism and “creating a want.” The Webster’s dictionary defines consumerism as “the concept that an ever-expanding consumption of goods is advantageous to the economy” which in Islam is “extravagance/Israf,” and is highly rejected. Just therefore, if marketing is based on consumerism then much of what she said is fairly similar to how people perceive the existence of Islamic ...