I know of no manner more superb in illustrating the veracity of a thesis than to have the audience arrive at the conclusion themselves. If I do a sound job, when I make the revelation of which ‘Hadith’ is the subject of this article, the more perceptive of you will have anticipated it already.
The title of this article speaks of corruption. I should qualify that. My thesis pertains neither to political nor administrative corruption, respectively. It pertains strictly to corruption in social and economic relations. In the philosophy and ethics of our commerce.
Why is Pakistan a place where, if you ask a fruit seller the rate of an item, many respond, “The market rate is such-and-such, but for you, the rate is (enter: a believable discount)”? Why are cars on PakWheels priced, on average, about 8-10% higher than the price the majority of sellers actually intend to accept? Why does virtually every milkman water his milk?
Let’s lay the groundwork first. What determines the nature of relations in a region’s economic life?
There is most assuredly more than any one factor. Max Weber, for example, attributed the acceptance of capitalism primarily to the changes that the Protestant Reformation brought in Northern Europe. Simply put, to religion.
However, just like there are historical and cultural particularities, the understanding of which affords local insight, so there are universalities of the human condition.
If you ask a classical economist the aforementioned question - e.g. what turns a village into a town and thereafter into a city - most will answer, ‘the nature and extent of the division of labor and trade amongst the inhabitants of a country.’
The same question to a development economist, comparing first-world with developing countries, may yield, ‘the nature and extent of the division of labor.. between different countries.’
From a Marxist sociologist, ‘..between the different socioeconomic classes.’
From a feminist sociologist, ‘..its perpetuation and institutionalization in the form of gender roles.’
You may champion it, or you may well condemn it. I merely illustrate to you that there is perhaps no concern as intrinsic to the social sciences as is the nature and extent of the division of labor.
Presently, I ask you to consider this: What if a virus was injected into the ethics of trade? Such that people would perceive each other as opponents, with whom one is locked in a zero-sum game? Would the afflicted space eventually come to suffer anything less than a sort of cold civil war?
After almost a decade of, first, officiating disputes amongst buyers and sellers in the marketplaces of Lahore, and then myself getting embroiled in them, I am convinced that there is a clear etiology to the zero-sum-game mentality we encounter ubiquitously in this country:
“Rasoolullah (SAW) would bargain till sweat appeared on his forehead.”
This is a fabricated Hadith.
I do not know of any Islamic scholars who surmise its genesis. Only that they have stated it is nowhere in the authentic books of the Ahadith and is furthermore opposed to what is known of the Prophet’s (SAW) nature and teachings, respectively. Yet I have seen people in Pakistan act it out their entire lives and instruct others in it.
Haggling is not forbidden. The Prophet (SAW) is reported to have haggled over the price of trousers. But eating is not forbidden either. And he (SAW) also said that man fills no vessel worse than his stomach.
There is a world of difference in haggling, on the one hand, over the price on a single article for sale, when the seller is unaware of the local market’s dynamics and is doing himself a disservice by alienating potential buyers an unreasonable demand. And in haggling with a seller against the consensual market price of a commodity that other buyers have already purchased. The latter event, in economic terms, is verifiable proof: this merchant’s asking price qualifies within the measure of market viability.
To demand a discount nonetheless, the first time, is to infringe on the merchant’s right of profit. To demand it repeatedly, even after the merchant has declined, is not inherently different from scheming to extort money from someone. To continue to do so, when the merchant has not consented, or is protesting altogether, should well be considered a misdemeanor.
Dr. Viktor Frankl, in Man’s Search for Meaning, his memoir of the Holocaust, wrote that men with a primitive sense of social ethics respond to the experience of injustice by assuming a license to subject others to the same.
“..one observed that people with natures of a more primitive kind could not escape the influences of the brutality.. Now, being free.. they became instigators, not objects, of willful force and injustice. They justified their behavior by their own terrible experiences. ... [they had forgotten] that no one has the right to do wrong, not even if wrong has been done to them.”
Now do you see why the fruit seller tells that tale about giving you a ‘special discount’? And the milkman cheats you? It’s anticipation. Of being shortchanged by us, yet again.
From morning till evening. For every single waking day, the common man goes through the rigors of keeping that hand-to-mouth existence afloat in ever-deepening water. And we pull him face-down into the abyss till he kicks and flails and gasps for his breath and finally accedes his ‘consent.’
Does it truly surprise you then, when ‘an eye for an eye’ escalates to ‘a crime for a crime?’ Or that there is quite literally a scam culture in this country?
Pakistan is diseased and I have learned that this fabricated ‘sunnat’ is one of its most ubiquitous viruses. And no amount of aid from international development agencies is going to cure it. People who have left Pakistan for the West speak of life in this country being, “lies upon lies, and corruption upon corruption.”
I don’t contest the veracity of that assessment one bit. I hope they won’t in turn contest with the veracity of mine: first, you helped create this Frankenstein, and now you flee from it?
Ladies and gentlemen, I ask you to join me. To not flee. Instead stand our ground and doctor this plague of fabrication upon fabrication, of relentless haggling and the rebound corruption it has engendered. And, if not, then let it only be that you please serve our faith, and the country on which it was founded, the justice of ceasing to attribute to the former the label of a ‘sunnat.’
Haris bin Faiez and Fasiha Bilal
Haris bin Faiez is an independent scholar, focused on the intersection of religion, medicine, and the social sciences. He holds a BSc in the social sciences from LUMS. harisbinfaiez@gmail.com
Fasiha Bilal is a development economist. She holds an MSc in economics from the University of Warwick. fasihabilalmalik@gmail.com