 Okay. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa rahmatullahi. I'm trying to share my screen, but not quite successfully. I'm going to... Okay, I think this will work. Can everybody see my screen now? Yusuf, can you see my screen? Yes. Yes, it's visible. Okay. So I'm going to start the slideshow. Just let me know if this, this is okay. Can you see the first screen? The first slide? Yes. Okay. Very good. All right. So Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. So this lecture, we will discuss the issue of needs, wants and scarcity. And the goal is to show that this idea of scarcity is completely wrong. And the methodology adopted to end scarcity in economics is completely wrong. And Islam offers a completely different and unique approach to the subject. So we have two radically different perspectives. One is that the central economic problem is scarcity. There is not enough goods to satisfy all wants and needs. And so the solution is to produce more goods. And that is growth. As opposed to this, there is the point of view of degrowth that growth is actually destroying the planet. We are exploiting the planet at a rate which is beyond sustainable, causing a lot of harm. And so we need to stop growing and actually reduce our standards of loving so that we can survive and the flora and the fauna of the planet can survive. The climate crisis that is actually it's not a crisis, it's a catastrophe. Thousands of species have already been destroyed. And it seems like if we don't do things to change things, then the humanity itself will not be able to inhabit this planet if the temperature rises too far. So we need urgently to avert the climate crisis. And today what I'm going to argue is that Islamic teachings are essential. They provide the foundation for a philosophy and an ideology which is the only possible way to avert the climate crisis. Well, Allah tells us that there are two highways that he has shown us. And the first highway is the one of scarcity that the solution is growth. But the Prophet said that scarcity is the mindset. The true richness is contentment of the heart. And so it cannot be removed by having more and more. In fact, the opposite is true. The more you get, the more you desire. So instead of trying to buy more and more goods to reduce scarcity, you have to try to learn to be content with what you have. So where we stand as a whole is a very interesting quote of Gaines, which I have linked here. It is long. So I'm just going to summarize what it says. And basically what Gaines says is that pursuit of wealth is actually a psychological disease because if you just go for money without using it, that's meaningless. I mean, you waste your life earning money and you die with it in the bank account. And that's actually also mentioned in Hadith that a man says that this is my wealth. This is my wealth. But the wealth only belongs to him, which he uses up actually. And the rest belongs to his heirs. But what Gaines says is that regardless of the fact that this is a psychological disease, we must infect people with this disease because that will lead to production of wealth. If people are content with what they have, then they will not produce more goods and wealth will not accumulate. And he thinks that he says explicitly that once wealth accumulates and everybody has enough for all their needs and wants, then there will be an amazing change in people because now they will be satisfied and content and happy, and then they will no longer do crimes. They will become kind and generous and compassionate because they don't need anymore, so they will have enough, they will give to others. But he says that this time is not yet to be where that we have to wait for a century or so. And we have to just let avarice and greed be our gods. So he says that make greed your God because that will allow wealth to accumulate. Once we have enough wealth, then we can stop this and we can afford to realize that greed is bad. So this is what Cain said and this is actually what the whole world is doing right now. If you look at all the world, the ministries of finance, the ministries of planning, the kings and the presidents and the prime ministers, they're all pursuing madly economic growth. Some regime, some president, some prime minister achieves a high growth rate. He says that, good, I have done what was needed. If somebody does a low growth rate, then he's voted out. But actually, if you look at the data, economic growth has not led to prosperity. And actually, the opposite is true. And the solution to our economic problems does not lie in growth. It lies in degrowth. This is rather paradoxical and surprising because we have been trained to believe otherwise, but we must reduce the amount of production if you want prosperity and welfare. And that's basically because what Islam teaches us that scarcity is a mindset. It cannot be removed by growth. It only increases with growth. So today, the major item on the agenda, because people have recognized that growth is not working, it's causing a lot of harm. So they say that what we should do is sustainable development. We should do growth because there's no alternative to growth. But what we need to do is to manage the harmful side effects. This is trying to put a bandaid on the problems, but it will not work. What we need to do is rethink the entire economic model from the ground up, starting from the wealth of nations by Adam Smith. He put the whole discipline on the wrong track. And the foundation to create such a radical change does not exist in Western intellectual tradition. They can only make patches. So it's up to us Muslims to provide these foundations, because it's a critical need of modern times and nobody else can do it. One thing to realize is that economics is a religion, and this is the religion which replaced Christianity. Although it claims that this is positive and factual, it claims to deliver knowledge free from doubt. But actually what is done is by taking the metaphysics and the morals and the personal beliefs and naming it as scientific methodology. So to a far greater extent than people realize, Sam Wilson's textbook on the foundations of economics created the modern discipline of economics. And Sam Wilson was actually a disciple of Keynes. So he had the same idea that we have to infect people with greed to create growth. Eventually growth will solve the problems that we face. So one of the critical things to understand about this capitalist religion is that the Bible says that the love of money is the root of all evil. But capitalism says that lack of money is the root of all evil. And the accumulation of wealth is the solution to all problems facing mankind. In fact, because this accumulation of wealth is at the heart of capitalism, it's built on producing more and more and getting people to labor more and more to produce. And with this extra labor they get income and this income they buy goods. So this is a complete trap. You are caught in a cycle of laboring to produce useless goods and earning income to buy useless goods. So everybody is just caught in this vicious cycle in which you keep doing more and more things for the sake of nothing. Those extra goods get you nothing in terms of pleasure. And you have to labor very hard to get them. So you basically end up wasting your lives. But all the economic statistics show that something good is happening. GNP is increasing, so welfare is increasing, which is actually false. So Islam offers us the opposite perspective. Making accumulation of wealth the goal is the source of all our current problems. And once we understand this, then we can get to the place where we can recommend degrowth as the way to go for the future. So let me describe a personal experience which led me to the understanding that I had been brainwashed by capitalism. Like everyone is that money is the source of all our problems. So in 1980, one of the elders of the belief was giving a talk in the New York Mercers. And he talked about idol worship. He said that, you know, you guys think that you are very smart and that the people of Mecca, they created these idols with their own hands and then they started worshiping them. So I said, yes, of course, this is true. They were very stupid. He then took out a dollar bill and he said that, look, we have printed this piece of paper by our own hands. But you believe and he sort of looked at me at least it felt to me like he was looking at me. You believe that if you have this, you will be happy and content and secure and people will respect you and admire you. If you don't have this, then no one will respect you. You will be hungry, you will be insecure, you will not be able to enjoy a happy life. And so I looked into my heart and I said, yes, I have all of these beliefs. He said, what's the difference between you and the idol worshippers? So I said, this is true, that I think that the source of my contentment and happiness, but that is what started my engagement with the belief. And I realized that this feeling in my heart that the wealth is the solution to all my problems is wrong. And this is something that I have been taught to believe, but I must undo this. I must cleanse my heart. Otherwise, it will not be good. So the father economics, he said that wealth of nations is the key and how the whole book is about how nations can create wealth. And that is actually the perspective of the colonizer of the world that they were looting the world to acquire wealth. But what is the perspective of our Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam? And he says that Allah didn't give me this message to accumulate wealth. He said that you should make the praise of Allah and make sajda and worship and until the death comes. The Quran says clearly that the pursuit of wealth is not the solution. That if someone has wealth and sons, this doesn't mean that Allah likes him or that he has achieved prosperity. And of course, Allah says, Allah gives the examples of Pharaoh in Qarun to show that power and wealth are not the desired goals to strive for. One of the things that Keynes said and thought and very many people believe that if we have a lot of money, then we will stop. Then we will be content and we will become generous and we will be happy. And so that will solve the problem of scarcity. But the Quran tells us that this is not true. That people think, this is very explicit, that people think that if we have enough wealth, then we will give Sadaqah from it. But actually when they get more, they do not do this. They cling to it and they ask for even more. And so the Islamic solution to our problems is rather unique and different. And it says that we should fulfill our needs but we should not go for our wants. Needs are rather broadly defined and they are limited and so they can be fulfilled. Wants are unlimited and they expand upon fulfillment. So it's impossible to satisfy wants. So the goal of economics is that we want to satisfy all needs and wants. This is impossible and trying to satisfy wants creates unhappiness instead of unhappiness. So the Islamic solution to the problem that our wants are unlimited is to prohibit these wants. Learn to be content with what you have and if you do that, you will get rich and fulfilling lives. So to be a little bit clearer, needs are defined generously. Islam does not tell us about Rehbaniyat. It doesn't say that you should live in a cave and have minimal standards. It says no, be comfortable, eat, drink, even wear your beautiful clothes. So we are allowed for needs, we are allowed for comforts, we are allowed for beautification. But no israf, no tabzeer, no conspicuous consumption. This is the most important that we buy things in order to make other people jealous of us. Or we buy things because everybody else has them so we want them too. Capitalism depends on this excess consumption. And we are all trained in capitalism. So all of us have bought things which we never used. We purchased them from the store and we put them somewhere thinking that we will use them. And eventually we threw them away without ever using them. So that's israf. So Allah ta'ala teaches us that those who are preferring the life of the world, they will find hellfire. And those who prefer the hosuf, fear Allah will prevent ourselves from idle desires. So we are not supposed to pursue our wants. And that is part of the what we have to do to gain paradise. So pursuit of idle desires is prohibited in so many different verses that I could not gather them all. But some of the ones are the one of the clear verses about israf and tabzeer, that these are brothers of shaiteen. And so that's very harsh condemnation of israf and tabzeer. And there's a very interesting verse in the Quran that because this world is meaningless, the pursuit, the gold and silver that we think is so important is just completely meaningless, completely useless. Allah ta'ala says I would have made these houses of the unbelievers of gold and silver. But the problem is that because Allah ta'ala has put the love of these things in our hearts, he said that everybody would have said, oh, who has seen the heaven? Let's enjoy gold and let's disbelieve so that we can get this gold and silver. Allah ta'ala says this is only a temporary short-lived enjoyment and the real and permanent gain is in the Akhira. So it is said clearly that if you have a value of gold, you will want another one. So clearly, if somebody has wants, you fulfill these wants. It doesn't lead to satisfaction, it doesn't lead to satiation. So having a million dollars is not enough to create satisfaction. So basically, the economist's idea, which is being currently pursued by the whole world, that the problem of scarcity can be solved by growth is simply false, doesn't work. So one of the most important discoveries of the past few decades is the Easterlin paradox, which comes at the same issue, but instead of supporting it from the Quran, we use empirical evidence. So he finds that massive increases in wealth did not lead to increase in human welfare. If we take this seriously, then the whole of this discipline becomes completely destroyed. We have to just throw Adam Smith into the dustbin and rebuild economics. And this is what we need to do, rewrite the wealth of nations. And basically what Islam teaches us, the wealth of nations is the people, the human beings. They are the most important of the creation. One life is worth all of humanity. So that is where we have to focus our efforts if we follow an Islamic approach. As Gadi said, there's enough for everyone's need but not enough for everyone's greed. So if we pay attention to satisfaction of needs and prohibit fulfillment of desire, there would be no scarcity. Food supplies per capita have been rising over the past two centuries for which we have data. They are more than enough to feed everyone on the planet. Even if you isolate continents and look at Africa, which is the worst in terms of food. The food supply per capita in Africa itself is enough to feed everyone in Africa. Today, the cosmetic industry of the world has enough revenue to end hunger on the planet. And the US defense budget is sufficient to provide for basic needs of all humans on the planet. So what this means is that what we have in terms of productive capacity is enough to provide for the needs of everyone on this planet. So there's no scarcity. But what is not recognized is the critical teaching of Islam, that there is a right in the wealth of the rich for the poor. And this is beyond zakat to whatever is necessary to provide for them. So this is the critical teaching of Islam, which is not understood, not recognized by, not acknowledged by economics. That anybody who has more than what he needs, some proportion of this wealth should be used to fulfill the needs of others. Two and a half percent is the minimum. But actually, whatever is needed. And if this simple thing was implemented, and many people from secular grounds have recognized this, Piketty, for example, and many others, that what we need is a wealth tax. If we just say that, okay, you can have billions, but just make sure that to wipe out hunger on the planet. Do your part. I mean, give them a proportion that, okay, the total needs of the hungry are so much. It's not too much. The figures slip my mind right now. So I'm thinking like $150 billion or something like that. Some trivial amount for the major players in the game. And so if we just say, okay, take the top 10 billionaires and ask them to pool money to wipe out hunger, they can do it. So the idea that scarcity is the problem is just a trap is just a blindfold. It makes us look in the wrong direction. Instead of looking to the source, which is the greed and accumulation by the top, the wealthiest. And that's precisely where they don't want us to look. They say, okay, we don't have enough. Let's try to grow some more food and grow some more products. All of that said plus get ends up in the pockets of the already wealthy. So you still paradox. Let me just go a little bit more into it, but details are available easily from the literature. What he did was he analyzed time series data. So he looked at the USA and other countries for his data was available. He said that, you know, life standards have increased so much that the average person lives like the princes used to live 100 years ago. But does this mean that the society has increased it in happiness? He was surprised to find that the answer is no. One of his papers is entitled does money buy happiness? And he comes to the conclusion no. Similarly, in a cross section, you look at countries at the same period of time and you find that Cuba, which had income level of one tenth of that of USA had roughly similar level of happiness. So there was no correlation between GNP and happiness. And so basically, that's what Islam teaches us that wealth cannot buy happiness. And there's no increase in welfare due to the pursuit of ideal desires. It's useful to understand why the Easter in paradox occurs. And basically, one key is to understand that, yes, if I fulfill somebody's needs, somebody's hungry, and I feed him that does increase welfare. But if somebody wants to listen to music and we fulfill that want, that doesn't lead to increase of welfare. Why not? There are two things which operate. One is habituation. Once you get used to a certain standard of living, then that becomes your new normal. Now, when you get it, that doesn't make you happy. It's just what is normal. But if you don't get it, you become unhappy. Initially, if you don't have air conditioning and you get it, you become very happy. But later on, you expect air conditioning as the norm. And now when you go out of your house, you feel unhappy. So the other thing is relativity or social comparison. When you get the first car in your neighborhood, you feel very happy because you have something nobody else has. If everybody else gets them, then it no longer gives you happiness. So the problem is, so it's consumption is like a drug addiction. You consume a little bit and makes you happy temporarily, but then you get used to it. And now you must get the same level of consumption to live a normal life. And if you don't get that, you become unhappy. But as you increase your standard of living, you have to labor harder. You have to work more to maintain that level. So in order to, and earlier you had a low standard of living, you didn't have to work so hard. But now you have a high standard of living and you must maintain it. You must maintain it because if you don't, you will become extremely unhappy. So it's just like drug addiction. What Galbraith says is that the urgent ones, the thing we really need, must originate from within us. If they are created, they cannot be urgent. And there is no justification to manufacture goods, which to satisfy non urgent needs, because what happens in an industrial society, he says is that manufacture is far in excess of needs. And therefore it also manufactures the demand for this excess. So in technical terms in economics, consumption creates a negative externality. Yes, you get happy, but everybody else who sees you becomes unhappy because they don't have what you have. And so the value of this excess, it's a very strong negative thing. So actually, people who have studied it from completely secular grounds have said that people who have completely secular grounds, they have said that we should ban excess conduction. We should make sure that everybody has a simple standard of living, because if somebody tries to increase the standard of living, one person gets more, but thousands of people get unhappy. So it's a very strong negative externality. So now that's the theoretical foundation for degrowth. And I will go somewhat more into this a bit later. But now I want to study the history of capitalism, which was actually the period when this idea of growth started. Basically, you know, we had static societies, self-sufficiency was the norm everywhere that that's what we want in a society, that we want to be able to fulfill our needs. The goal of life is not to consume or to produce. The goal of life is to pursue higher achievements like, you know, spirituality is but literary achievement, athletics, many other things. Art, socialization, that's the most important. Making friends, these are the goals of life, not the pursuit of wealth. So what happened, how did pursuit of wealth started? Looking at the history of this is very instructive because this history is not displayed in your textbooks. And it's not displayed in the common histories that we read of the European civilization because those are very Eurocentric and they display only the virtues of the European society. So it all got started with the triangular trade from 1600 to 1800, where basically guns and manufacturers were sent from Europe to Africa. And slaves were purchased in Africa and transported across to the Americas. This was called the Middle Passage and one of the most horrifying pieces of history in all of recorded history. The agricultural products produced by these slaves were shipped to Europe. It's an interesting footnote that part of the reason for the development was that strong Islamic empires blocked European access to Asia. So what was the consequence of this triangular trade? The Europeans became very wealthy but African societies were destroyed. Lots of African kingdoms, cultures, nations, they no longer exist. Similarly, millions of Native Americans, we can't really count how many there were. There were whole societies and cultures, they were just completely destroyed. So this was, the Europeans became rich, so the wealth of nations did accumulate in the nations of Europe. But would we say that this is progress? If you look at the Africans and Native Americans, you say that this is the catastrophe. Maybe if you think of it from Adam Smithian perspective, then you could call it progress, although we're going to question that a little bit later. But let's take that for the moment that, okay, pursuit of the Europeans progress. Even then, if you add up the numbers and look at it from the world perspective, you will not count this as progress. You will count this as degeneration. So what does the Quran teaches us about this matter? So is it progress to increase your wealth by destroying societies and killing millions and enslaving millions? Well, I think any human being would answer the same way, but Allah ta'ala specifically says, So we should not be deceived by the pride and pomposity and the glory that European wealth brings to them. This is only a temporary gain and in the Akhira they will be punished for what they did. Now let's look a little bit more closely at the question, was this progress for Europeans? Well, those who have studied it said that this act, the horrible and inhuman acts that were done to Africans, killing millions and enslaving millions had a very bad effect on the colonizer. It basically dehumanized them. They had to believe that these human beings are not human and otherwise they wouldn't be able to sleep. But they were aware, every nafs knows what it does. They were aware that this is a rationalization. So they had to actually deaden their hearts to the pain of others. But what happens when you deaden your heart to the pain of others is that your heart really becomes dead and you are unable to feel pleasure also. And this happened to the society as a whole that because of failure to feel the pain of other human beings, the hearts of the colonizers became deeply damaged. So to avoid this and actually to overcome the loss that came from losing Christianity, the myth of progress was manufactured. The Europeans defined progress as accumulation of wealth, not as becoming better people. And this is part of the religion of economics that if we have more money, then we are better off and we are progressing. And so when you use this metric, then you see that there has been a lot of progress in Europe. Although there are many ways to counter this idea and to explain that even when you count wealth, if you count the gross wealth, the wealth that people have and the wealth that they have destroyed in order to get this wealth that they have, then the net comes out heavily negative. What has been destroyed to produce this wealth is much larger than the wealth that has been produced. But anyway, the myth of progress is very strongly rooted in the Eurocentric tradition, and we have also come to believe in it. And this is critical. If you want to decolonize our minds, we need to learn that Europeans did not make progress. And this is hard to do because we have spent years and years of our lives learning to believe that this is progress, what Europeans have been doing. But for a Muslim, it's very easy to understand that this is not progress because there is a very clear and simple and explicit Hadith that the best of times is my time. And then after that, and then after that, so it's obvious that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam lived in the best of times and there was not a much wealth there. And so wealth is not the criteria of progress. And nobody can ever achieve the level of goodness that was present at the time of the Prophet and at the time of the Khulafah Rashidin. So we can say that there has been no progress. It has been up and down, but progress cannot be. The Quran says that the best of the people will be a lot in the early times but few in the later times. The later times are worse because we have few of the best people. So this critical difference that capitalism measures our progress by the goods we have, whereas Islam measures progress by the level of the character of the people. So when you look at what happens in a consumer surplus, we have culture. We have today the opioid crisis. People have been in the USA where people manufacture painkillers which are addictive for massive profits. But this has also led to massive increase in addiction, death and other health hazards just for the sake of profit. Similarly on the worldwide basis, Nestle has been advertising their milk powdered formula, knowing that this will lead to millions of deaths. So just like the slave trade, this thing is going on today. Iraq and Libya and Syria have been destroyed for the sake of corporate profits and this is known and acknowledged. So this idea that profits is the goal leads to tremendous damage and it's a false accounting where you count the money but you don't count the number of people killed to make this money that leads to the illusion that we are making progress. So Islam gives us a lot of tools to counter this consumer culture. Allah tells us that yes, the things of this world have been made desirable. Our hearts are attracted to them. But Allah has the best things. And this is actually because the life of this world is a test. If we did not have these desires, there would be no test. We would easily, we would be like angels and we would not feel attracted to these things. So this attraction is necessary part of the test. But Allah tells us that there are two paths that we have shown them the two highways and we have shown them the path and they can choose to be grateful or they can choose to be kafur. So let whoever wants to let them choose the path to Allah. So the strategy that we need to follow is that we must not prefer the worldly life and we must prefer the Akhira because Akhira is infinite. The worldly life is just a moment and we must choose the Akhira, the success of the Akhira over the success of this world. We must recognize that the pleasure of this world is an illusion. It seems like a lot but even those who get these pleasures, they get momentary satisfaction and then they find that it turns to dust just like the example. I myself remember that I thought that getting a degree from MIT would be the final success and I would have succeeded. But after I got it, I realized that oh, a bachelor's is nothing and I have to get a master's and master's and then PhD at every stage. I was thinking that once I do that, I will be the king of the world. But after accomplishing it, I said, oh, this is nothing. This is just the start. So it's like this. This world is an illusion. We just keep thinking a little bit more and I will succeed and then when you get that little bit more, you find that it is not success. It is just temporary and partial. So this is the way with all worldly accomplishments. When you don't have it, it looks very attractive. When you have it, it turns to dust. And Allah teaches us that this life is short and temporary. Be in this world like a stranger or a wayfarer. So now you see, Islamic economics is not a theory in the books. If we want to implement Islamic economics, we have to start with our lives. We have to be Islamic economics, which means implementing these things in our lives. So in the evening, don't expect to think that this life is temporary and so don't work hard for it. Instead, work hard for the Akhira. And one of the key strategies for cleansing our hearts of the love of this dunya is to spend what we love the most. Today, we don't love the consumer goods as much as we love our screen time. So what this is saying is that sacrifice that and learn to read the Quran and do zikr and ibadah. And this comes as very, very hard to the nafs. So there are strategies which our elders have recommended. Don't say that from now on, I take an oath never to watch TV again because you won't be able to do it. So instead, calculate that, okay, I watch six hours or I spend six hours and pleasure. So how much of that can you give up? Maybe you can say that, okay, I can do with five and I will make one hour and use it for ibadah. And then again, there's a lot of different types of ibadah. You can even watch videos of Abdul Hakim Murad and other leaders. So you can be nice to your nafs because if you are too harsh on it, it will rebel and it is very strong. You have fed it so much that it is so powerful that you cannot resist it. So you have to trick it. You have to go slow and spend a little bit enough and make it agreeable. So choose among the worships, the easy ones and reduce it gradually and make sure that you take steps that you can maintain instead of taking a big step and then coming back. So one of the things that we need to learn is that Allah tells us that one life is worth the entire humanity. So this is just in potential. So learn how we can live so that our life is worth equivalent to all of humanity in the eyes of Allah. We should understand that we are not like that right now. But it is possible for us to achieve that goal because Allah has said that this potential lies within all of us. So how can we live so that we become precious in the eyes of Allah? Allah says that we have created the man in the best of forms. It means that man can be higher than the angels. He can be made such that to buy the angels. But he can also be the worst of the beasts. So make a self-evaluation. Where do you stand in this continuum? Are we worse than beasts or are we higher than angels? Most people are somewhere in the middle. There is three stages of progress. Which is exactly the homo-economics, by the way. Ammar is exactly the homo-economics. And the theory of the homo-economics is the theory of the homo-economics or the Ammar. Most of us are beyond that. Even within the West, even the Atheists, they are more like the LaVama. Although I think there was a survey which showed that about 10% people have become the Ammar. It used to be less, but now because of the preaching of economic theory all over the world, you see a lot of Nafs-e-Ammara, like even 10%. But most people are somewhere in the middle in Nafs-e-LaVama. So we have to think about how we can move from Nafs-e-LaVama to Nafs-e-Mutma-Inna. And the goal of a society is to provide a nurturing environment for spiritual progress. And this is very different from the goal of an economic society of Adam Smith to accumulate wealth. In fact, accumulation of wealth is an obstacle and hindrance because when we do that, then we don't have time to pursue the things which matter. So the Quran teaches us the, actually this is Hadith, that wealth, it's not that we reject wealth. We are not Rahibs. But if our heart doesn't have the love of wealth, then we can, then if wealth comes from Allah, then it is a blessing for us. But if we are greedy, we seek after wealth and we try to acquire it, then it does not bring barakah. So this is very difficult teaching. It requires work to rid our heart of the love of wealth. And basically it is the love of wealth, which is the root of evil. But this needs work. Now the Quran teaches us that wealth and poverty are both trials from Allah Ta'ala. Wealth is not desirable for itself. And similarly, poverty is also not desirable because it's a trial. So how can we succeed in the trial by wealth? If we use the wealth, first of all, if we acquire wealth by halal means instead of haram means, not by colonization. If we acquire wealth by halal means and then we spend it in the way that Allah Ta'ala wants us to spend it, which means that spend on those who need. And if I have more than what I need, then I should be spending it on needs of others rather than my own wants. Capitalism teaches us precisely the opposite lesson. If you have more than what you need, spend on your own wants, increase your own wants. So we see the effects of this message everywhere in Pakistan. For example, when I was growing up, it would have been impossible to spend 1000 rupees on a meal, even inflation adjusted because there was nothing like that available. Okay, you can spend 10,000, 20,000 on eating a meal in a fine restaurant because as people acquire many, they are also given consumption opportunities. You can buy $50,000 handbags when $1 will feed a person and you could have fed 50,000 hungry malnourished children. But capitalism says, no, don't worry about that. You won't have any information about that. Just buy your handbag. So Allah Ta'ala says that we should use our wealth to purchase the Jannah. Now, once you understand Easter in paradox that consumption doesn't buy us happiness, then secular economists, not economists, but happiness theorists turn to the study of what actually does lead to longer than happiness. And they came up with very old answers. Basically, it's two things, character and social relationships. This is secular, otherwise, from an Islamic point of view, it's really our relationship with God, which is central. But from the secular perspective, character depends on certain traits like gratitude, contentment, trust, which we have mentioned, and social relationships, loving and being loved, and he is loved. So these are the basis for long term happiness. Capitalism actually destroys these bases because it promotes hedonism and it promotes the illusion that happiness comes from consumption. This is what's written in all economics textbooks. But actually, the family is the primary source of happiness for most people. And this has been destroyed in the West. More than 50% of the children born today in the West are born to single mothers. This is, unfortunately, this culture of individualism and hedonism is spreading rapidly to the Islamic countries and there is no awareness. I mean, people are fighting all sorts of battles in the Islamic world, but the main battle to be fought is to protect and preserve the family and the community and to build social relationships. I have a previous lecture, lecture six on this. So how can we fail in the trial by wealth? Well, if we puff up with pride and we think that this is because of I did it, then we can and then we use this wealth to oppress others. That is when wealth becomes a source occurs for us, not a blessing. And so one of the major problems that we face today is that because of shock and off West, we are following them in all directions without thinking that this following is against the message of the Quran. And so to undo this shock and off, we just need to look at the true history of European colonization. Anyone who reads this true history will simply realize that this is not a path we should follow. They are not a people that we should respect. So I'm going to go over this very quickly because time is up. But there is this book King Leopold's Ghost, which documents the most horrible crimes committed in human history where it's almost it's so horrifying that there is a movie about this and a book, but only people with very strong stomachs and hearts would be advised to read this is just too horrible. Then there is the slavery in the middle patches where millions and millions of Africans were transported from the coasts of Africa to the coasts of the Americas. And this was enormously, the conditions of these wowage are just unmentionable. And this is now coming out and there are books and articles and documents. Again, these are books that are so gruesome, so horrifying that it's hard to read for anyone who has a heart. This history of the British Empire by Elkins shows that although they pretended to be fair and just, they used an enormous amount of violence to protect and preserve their empire. And they left a legacy of violence. They were so routine in using this violence that this became the pattern in the colonies afterwards as well. You can't find any example of the kind of violence that has been done in Islamic history. We didn't, any killing is there, but torturing and doing it ruthlessly and enjoying this. This is simply not available except in the colonial history where they treated human beings like animals and beasts. And this has led to what Elkins says is that the current violence that we see around the world is just a legacy of the British Empire because they did it everywhere. So everyone else learned that this is how we should behave. The opium wars is related to the economics. China was a self efficient economy. They didn't want any good. But the British wanted a lot of Chinese goods and they had to pay in silver, which they couldn't afford. So what they did was they did war, made China forbid the sales of opium. So they made war on China in order to prevent, in order to allow the trading of opium and created a massive addict population within China, which didn't exist. And then they were able to sell opium and get money from the Chinese so that they could finance their purchases. So this idea that trade is mutually beneficial. This is simply wrong. This is not how it works. Basically, you create needs which were not there and then you fulfill them. And this just leads to a cycle of violence and useless production and useless consumption. British colonial killed millions in India. There are so many gruesome stories. One of them is that they forced the farmers in Bengal to produce export crops so that they could purchase them. And they prevented them from producing food which they would use to eat. And as a result, millions of people died in the Bengal famine, which was created by the British. And then they set up a commission of inquiry to ask how it happened. And this commission found that absorbed the British of the blame. So I'm going over time, but basically the thing to do is to look at what happens to the hearts. So when the hearts commit these crimes, they become hard. And they become blind. They cannot see the reality of what a human being is. So if you look at this economic theory, homo economicus, that the purpose of our life is to maximize our consumption, you should laugh at this. How can any sensible person even think such a thing, let alone write it and teach it and read it and believe it. It's just completely ridiculous and absurd. So the only answer is that their hearts have become blind to the reality of what a human being is. And some maqasat kulukum, their hearts have become hard like stones. And that's why they make these theories. These hearts are unable to connect to human beings. So for economists for 50 years, they've been trying to understand why human beings cooperate with each other. When they have a chance to betray the other guy, to put the knife in his back, they don't do it, even though it will bring them a million dollars. Why not? Economists have been puzzling about this for decades and they still have no closer to a solution. And the solution is simply that they have, the economists have blind hearts. And so now we are beginning to see the emergence of Islamic psychology. So there's Abdullah Rothman and Coyle. There's this article which is available, which discusses a model, Islamic model of the soul. There is a book by him and there are other approaches to this. But basically we have a Ruh which attracts towards the good. We have a Nafs which attracts towards the evil. And so our hearts are a battleground for good and evil. And this is the central battle that we face in our lives. And if we do Tazkia of our Nafs, then we can train it to like good. And that is the central battle in our lives. Now our minds have been conditioned by Orientalism that the, because Europeans colonized us, they came to believe that they are superior. We came to believe that we are inferior. And this is the main problem that we face because we are in shock and off Western theories. And we are not even looking at the Quran. So very strangely when I was preparing for this lecture, I was looking at some articles by Islamic economists. And these people are just saying that yes, growth is good. Utility maximization good. Quran has no objections to pursuit of pleasure of the Nafs. It says that we love the Shah-e-Waat-e-Minna Nisa. So obviously Islam has no objections to pursuit of pleasure. All sorts of ridiculous things which just, the thing is not that the West is saying them. The West has to say them because they reject the Akhira. The strange thing is that Muslim economists are right now in Islamic, in Muslim schools, teaching these absurd and ridiculous theories which are against the Quran to Muslim students. So Eurocentrism conflicts directly with Islam because the Quran says, and it's obvious intuitively that the message of God to mankind must be superior to any knowledge that can be generated by human minds. And so what I'm trying to show here is that the economic theory which the West has developed for over 300 years is harmful to mankind. It's absurd and ridiculous. It's easily rejected. And Islamic teachings provide us a far superior approach. And basically it comes from, we must start from looking at our purpose. Every knowledge has to be related to our purpose. And the purpose Allah has told us is to do good deeds and to make sure that everything we do is for the sake of Allah. So now we come to the important question. What about the non-Muslims? Because so far I have taken as my audience as Muslims because I've been using the Quran, etc. So I have studied this issue very carefully and I have tried in both ways. And I've come to the conclusion that we must follow a two-stage process. Yes, the message of Islam is for all mankind. It is not restricted to Muslims only. But first we must work among ourselves. We must work to become models of Islamic behavior. Then only we can spread the message to others. If the Islamic world is corrupt and if the Islamic world is pursuing growth, then we cannot tell to non-Muslims that you should pursue degrowth while we are ourselves pursuing growth. So in the first instance, there have to be two messages. If we try to abandon the Quran and give the message of degrowth on secular grounds, it will lack the foundations that are needed. So we need to work on the Muslims first. But the same message can be given to non-Muslims. It is possible to redo this whole lecture and make it attractive to non-Muslims because Allah has told us that the hearts of every human being have been implanted with the knowledge of God. So recognition of God is built into our hearts for all human beings. And so the life of this world is a test. Most of this lecture is to try to teach us how we should impact on our life experiences. Knowledge is what teaches us how to live. If you learn chemistry, biology, and it doesn't teach you how to live better, then it's useless knowledge. And it's something which Allah, the Prophet, saw protection from. So it is a test. We face different tests. Different people face, some people face very difficult tests. So in this connection, there are two promises of Allah. One is that some, the people who are facing difficult tests, Allah Taala will give them the resources to be able to succeed in the test. No one is tested beyond his capabilities. And also Allah Taala tells us that he will adjust our grades according to the level of the difficulty of the test. And so we are coming to the end of this lecture. What is the nature of this test? Well, on the one hand it's actions. We should know how to act. But knowing how to act is based on knowledge. And so the first revelation is all about knowledge. It's about read. He taught mankind what they did not know. But knowing, refers to knowledge of the path to God. How we can get to Allah Taala. So, So, So, So, when the angels complained about how man will do fitna and fasad, The answer was that other malaysalam will have knowledge and that is knowledge will make him superior. So it's all about knowledge. We have to acquire knowledge. What we have been, the problem with us today is that our brains have been washed. And we have been filled this, these brains with wrong types of Eurocentric knowledge. There are several levels of knowledge. And Rajab Shantur has very good lectures on the Islamic theories of knowledge which are multi-leveled. In Western theory, there is just good and bad. There's just true and false. This binary theory is completely inadequate for a realistic conception of human knowledge. And so we need to look at our heritage to learn knowledge. And that is part of this knowledge is an Islamic approach to economics. So I've come to the end of my lecture. And so, All right, so I think that we are ready for some questions. All right. So, yes, somebody has asked in the chat about how to get the slides. Well, basically the website for the course, which I have given the link to earlier will contain the slides for the lecture. Eventually, I will put them up soon. Even in this slide, there was a link to the slides. In fact, I think I can put it up. I have the link. So please raise your hand and ask any questions. What was this lecture needs, wants and scarcity. So this is the link for the slides, which I've just put on. All right, so are there any questions by anybody? Actually, there are several questions in the chat. All right, can you Yes. What kind of mindset for entrepreneurs with creating products so we don't intentionally create ones. The mindset for entrepreneurs. Yes. Entrepreneurship is very important part of Islam because Hadith emphasizes that, and this is actually relevant to a very important issue that the idea that is put into our minds is that we should become job seekers. But every job seeker is actually part of the capitalism capitalist web. So we should be looking for ways to escape this web and to create our own living and to create our own business so that and this business should be based on on Well, there are many approaches to this, but we should learn in view of the approaching climate catastrophe. We should learn to create communities, agrarian communities which grow their own food and energy and basically attempt to be as self sufficient as possible with minimal amount of trades and minimal amount of market. So, Rajab Shantur is the name of the Turkish scholar who will implement the Islamic ideology Islamic idea that we will implement it you and I a lot Allah has not given us priests who will be leaders, but actually it puts the responsibility for the dean on the shoulders of every single person. That's Islamic sustainable development. When you talk about sustainable development you're saying that we're going to do growth, but we're going to try to make sure that the growth is self sustaining so it doesn't do environmental climatic damage. So this kind of approach can work, and it can fail. And yes, of course the recording will be put on the website for the course. Eventually, probably tomorrow day after all recordings for all lectures are available. Any other questions Lisa from the past. Yes, from Dr Abdullah so if mostly we choose to prioritize their needs over the desired, what this means that they would neither experience relative scarcity nor absolute scarcity and he also asked about the reason behind the relative scarcity. Yes, if we choose to prioritize needs and we also realize practice social responsibility. If somebody in our neighborhood does not have enough for their needs, we collectively provide for them, then there would be no scarcity, neither absolute nor relative. And this concept of relative scarcity was invented by Islamic economists, because they wanted to find a halfway point. They didn't want to reject scarcity, but they also didn't want to reject Fazlullah, but this compromise is exactly what the problem is we don't have, we don't make compromises with the West. I think we can go to the those who have pressed handbrake. Yeah, I don't see any hands on the screen. They're happy. Maybe you can. Okay, yeah. Let me change the view so that. Okay, I see a lot of hands. Now, I was in the wrong view. All right, so. Daniel. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Okay, sir. If you see within the Western tradition and lately the position with the follow. They do have critical scholarship and you know the scholars do identify these problems such as greed hedonistic pursuit of happiness and you know method of progress all of these things. And as as a solution to you know these problems, they they provide a solution which they call workplace democracy. I mean in the form of cooperatives. This is the first time I heard of it. But go ahead. Yes. Okay, so, or maybe I've understood it wrong so the thing is I wanted to understand how do you conceive cooperatives and what is the stomach point of you towards cooperatives because cooperatives do enable the workers to own the corporation to own the business entity but then you know they're also enmatched within that discourse of myth of progress and you know increasing wealth and all of that. So some exactly I said that, first of all, the mainstream education is the source of shaping of minds. And so, in the mainstream economics, I haven't seen any mention of cooperatives anywhere. So basically the minds are now there are radicals there are heterodox economists. I'm one of them. And they are. But nobody is listening to them. So what they say what they don't say doesn't matter. It's not on the world stage. But even if where it was to start to listen to these heterodoxies to cooperatives. First of all, there's lots of examples of field cooperatives as in Russia, and in many other places as well. They don't have the in the West the intellectual foundations the ideological foundation on which to build a cooperative society because they've been studying for too long the idea of that we are just animals, products of evolution, and then state of nature is competition and survival of the fittest. And so, to rebuild this whole structure the foundations on which all of the social sciences construction is constructed is too much work. So, we need to, we can't build on those foundations we need to build on Islamic foundation that then we can create an example. And once we have an example other people will be able to follow. Asher Said. So, my question is that I'm a, I'm a homeschooling mother, and I'm trying to come up with a curriculum for children, which, which is like we talked about, you know, which, which helps children in, you know, getting knowledge which is actually beneficial knowledge. So, I'm working on different, different aspects like the Seerah and the Lamakwal and the world history, things that make sense, you know, things that benefit so Islamic economics is one of my, you know, it has been on my mind for very long, and I'm trying to come up with because And right now I, I'm looking at the mainstream books, for example, you know, if you look at the old levels of business studies book, or the A levels psychology book I've been going through this, I know students who are studying this so they all focus on, even you know, a book on psychology A level psychology will only focus on the psychological behavior of consumers, and how to enhance motivation in order for, you know, workers to, you know, work efficiently for a capitalist society. So my question is, how do we, you know, if we were to work on a curriculum, how do we incorporate Islamic economics in our curriculum for children? Where do we start from? So I'm looking at the Seerah and I want to understand that from from the Seerah, what points do we focus on so that we incorporate this aspect of, you know, Islamic economics into our children's curriculum from a very young age, so that it does not become something extremely strange to them when they are in their teens. That's my question, I don't know if I'm clear or not. Yes, that's perfectly clear. And that's really an excellent question. And basically, let me say that the materials we need do not exist. And they have to be made up. If you look at the standard text, first of all, when you talk about O level A level, then of course, these are all secular and they are highly, not only highly unsuitable, they are actually antithetical to Islamic purposes. They teach LGBTQ, for example. And so, and in fact, that's one of the reasons for homeschooling that you can't avoid this toxin. But even if you look at the Islamic content, if you look at the textbook of Islamic economics that are available, they don't really do a good job at all. I think even in my past, in my own past work, I have focused a lot on critiques, but not so much on developing the Islamic alternative. Now this set of lectures which I'm currently preparing, this starts from building on Islamic foundations. And this is the first time I've been working on this for 10, 20 years. And finally, I've gotten to this stage where I think that I have something which is usable. But I think what you can do is if you look at my lectures on my website, and a lot of this material is translatable to things that would be understood by children from a very young age, like learning to be gratitude, making shukr to Allah for the gifts that he has given, learning to have anath, learning not to be consumed, learning to trust in Allah for our future. And these are characteristics which can be taught, and these are the fundamentals. But yes, this is a critical issue for the Muslims. This is a very important book that Islamic economics, a polar opposite to capitalist economics. I think that's your book. So I was just looking at that and I was wondering, would that be helpful for me? No, that was written about 15 years ago. And it's very sophisticated, very intellectual, not at all suitable for children and hard to read for even adults. But the current set of lectures is different. Right. So is the content of the book not aligned with these lectures? Are they not completely? The lectures are based on the book, but they are much simplified. And that book itself was written for a secular audience. It was addressed to a secular audience. This set of lectures is meant only for a Muslim audience. It's built directly on the Quran. Thank you so much. That helps me so much. Thank you. Okay. So Yaqub Rashid, yes. Yes, I can hear you. Actually, I want to ask you a question that what I learned from this lecture today actually should strongly agree with this thing. But what I felt is like this all the counter philosophical argument against the capitalist society or the capitalist economic system. The real is the need of an R is not to give a counter philosophical argument, or rather than to build a models like we have in capitalist economics or mainstream economics which we are currently studying. Like we have mathematical we have descriptive modeling there. The need of an R should be like our approach should be more like aligned towards this path. Like the earlier question asked by some sister, so that we can formulate simpler textbooks, like we are just studying in from 10.11, 10.12. So we can develop that form of modeling approach, like we have microeconomics, macroeconomics, so we could align with this mainstream argument. Well, I think that trying to align is has been the problem, because we cannot align for us. There is no micro and there's no macro economics is at the meso economics. The community level is the most important for Islamic economics, the neighborhood, a collection of people who are working together cooperating and building and this doesn't exist in normal economics. If we try to align with Western frameworks, we will simply not be able to align with Islamic frameworks. So Osama. Yes, sir. Thank you very much. Sir, I have two questions. Actually, I have written in this on this chat also said developing advanced economies will survive this growth, but developing and emerging economies will not. What's your take on it. And the second question is about the industrial revolution has radically altered men's environment is to be expected that as technology is increasingly applied to the human body and mind. Man himself will be altered as radically as environment and way of life has been changed. And the balance of power between individual and the larger systems lived also, when machines made much of the human labor obsolete, while simultaneously allowing big cooperation and big governments to observe track execute and social media bands shipping away bank accounts. Anyone being naughty. What's your take on it. Well, let me take the two questions of course very different. First of all, the idea that the poor countries of the world cannot survive the growth and this is wrong. Basically, if you look at how Russia and China developed. You see, the growth is indiscriminate. It says that okay if you increase the number of cars you manufacture than that is growth. But what Russia and China did was that they industrialized, but the living. They were still driving bicycles, they were not importing luxury lifestyle simple. And we need to make sure that we have a technology which is sufficient for defense. And that's exactly what was done by Russia they channeled all their productivity capacity into essential items, which part of which was defense but also other things so basically make sure that you have the hydroponics needed to feed everybody and invest in agriculture so that there is enough food for everybody invest in the medical sector. So, but but there's a huge amount of waste, which is done, and that waste can be curtailed, and it might look like growth is not going on because the. If you look at the GNP statistics your consumer goods will become less, you will produce simpler things, easier things and less things things which are of less value on the market. And so the price will be less but you will satisfy the needs of everybody. So, as long as you satisfy the needs of everybody. The fact that the rich people cannot consume their luxury products will actually be of great benefit to society. That's one thing. The other thing is technology is a side show. And if we are believers then Allah has created man so technology cannot change man. The test we have been created by Allah and we will die and we will be answerable to Allah. So, we have to do good deeds, we have to avoid bad deeds. This fundamental purpose of the creation of the universe cannot be changed by technology. All right, so I think that let's go to Zeeshan Aziz. There is a lot of noise on your line but if you talk loudly we can hear probably. Sir, am I audible? Yes, now. I have two very basic questions. One is how to bring rise to Islamic system. Your take would only be to get knowledge or any parallel system should be working on. This is very bad. I can't hear you put your question in the chat box. Let me go on to Iqra. Assalamu alaikum, Sheikh. Firstly, I would like to thank you for putting this lecture out in very easy to understand terms. And secondly, it was nice to see or rather hear the references to my teachers, Dr. Timothy Winter, Sheikh Abdul Hakim Murad and Dr. Abdullah Rothman. So, it was nice to hear that from you. My question, I think it's just me reflecting on the lesson today. And if I were to simplify it for myself, I think essentially what I am asked here to do is strike a balance between asceticism as a hood. And on the other hand, maintaining myself in terms of seeking goodness from this dunya in terms of like God likes beauty, God likes good smell. God likes me to wear nice clothes, things like that. So if I were to put it simply for myself. And also I think what people don't realise is pressure around me. For example, my parents are essentially economical migrants to this country. And then they would urge me to look into options of buying a house or mortgage, for example, or things like that. And that old system is changing, but it probably starts from me. And I would actually like to seek your advice more on how this can be infiltrated to change my parents' mindset in a way. So if you can, please. Now the thing is, actually a lot of people after my lectures contact me on my personal challenge to ask for personal advice on how to manage. And this has to be complicated because it's very particular to your personal situation as to what your career path should be, how you should use your life. So I'm very happy to advise, but this is something which is very individualised, so I will pass on that and ask you to contact me directly, separately. Sure, I'll do that. Can you at least comment on the first part of my question in terms of striking a balance between these two things? Yeah, normally, you see, if I look at myself, we are so heavily imbalanced on the side of, you know, preferring this life of this world to that of the Akhira, that this is not a big issue. If I'm spending eight hours on pursuit of worldly pleasures and one hour on my deen, then I should work for reducing worldly pursuit to seven hours and increase my deen to two hours. I mean, there were Sahaba who were given the opposite advice. There was this Sahabi who was spending all his days in fasting and all his nights in worship and the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam told him that, look, your body has rights upon you and your wife has rights upon you and so on. And your nafs has rights upon you and so on. So, but that's really, I don't think that there's anybody in this world right now who would need that advice. But actually what happens is that people who are deeply into the dunya, they cite the Sahabis that look. So it's cited in the opposite of what was intended to do. That's very insightful. Thank you. People are asking practical questions about how to implement the system. There are a couple of things. Lecture six was about precisely this issue, that how do we go about loosening the grip of capitalism upon us and how do we create an Islamic system. And lecture seven was addressed on the current economic problems of Pakistan and how we can solve them. So if you want to look at practical applications of these ideas, go back and look at lecture six and seven. All right, Haseeb Mujtaba. Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullah. Can you hear me, Chef? Can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you today. First of all, Professor, thanks a lot for giving such an opportunity to all of us. I can't explain it. So I go back to my question. I have a question and it has two aspects connected. The first one is that if you want to learn Islamic economics, we have to learn the philosophy of Islam towards economics. And how does it work and what is its most fundamental element like people, not the money as you explained. Now, I want to understand this philosophy myself. What should I do? What literature should I consume? I'm a mechanical engineering student and I have no economics background and that's good, I suppose. And this is the first aspect and the other aspect which is connected one is, even if I learn the philosophy, which is like an algorithm, you put a prompt, it gives your response accordingly. Even if I learn it, inspire my family members, I can see that if people like you who are really informed and highly educated and seasoned people are finding it close to impossible to overthrow this curse of consumerism and implement the system of Allah. How can I make myself the right person, the competent person to be the part, a brick of this wall? Thank you. Well, I think that I have tried to answer these questions very specifically in my lectures. So I think if you just go through my lectures. And as you said, knowing economics is an advantage, not a disadvantage because economics actually gives you wrong ideas and then you have to first get rid of them and then you can understand. But if you don't have any economics, you have not been brainwashed and so you'll be able to understand more easily. So if this is the eighth lecture, if you just go through the lectures, there's a lot of material in here. In this material also, there's a lot of references and many of this is very condensed. And in the lectures, I give pointers that if you want to read more about this, go to this source, read this book, watch this video, etc. So there is that even though the lectures themselves are only eight, if you just follow up the references, there's a huge amount of material. So if you want to study, this will be enough to just go through the lectures and sequences, which are all available conveniently easily on the website. Okay, so I think that we have gone over the time and I don't see any more hands. And if there is any more, one more question, I can take it, but if you have somebody in chat, you can write something or Daniel, okay. Okay, let this be the last question. By the way, I see in the chat people talking about the IMF and etc. So I've answered all of those questions and I've discussed about power and what we can, how we should respond to that. Just go through the past lectures, you will find the answers. Okay, Daniel. Thank you, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. I just want to ask, I mean, while you're responding to my question previously. What I understood is this that cooperatives, truly there is no problem, but as far as the value which is driving those cooperatives is problematic. Actually, Islam has its own theory of the firm. And it is actually cooperative. But the central difference is that our goal is not to make profits. Our goal is to serve our community. And so this creates a setup, which is rather different from anything that I have seen. So our bottom line is how much service did we provide to the community. And the earning we make is only what is needed to provide this service. I mean, if we don't make any earnings, then we won't be able to continue this task for long. So this conception of the firm is rather different from anything that I have seen. So I'm sorry, sir, can you provide some resources or provide some links to those resources through which I can understand what is the Islamic theory of a firm. It's available in my works. If you look at my articles, I've discussed this in a number of different places. Okay, okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. Okay, I think that we will call it quits at this point. There are many places where you can ask questions. There's my website, of course, in which I have normally post most of these lectures and you can put a question in there. My contact information is easily available. Anybody who's on my mailing list has my email and you can ask me directly via email. So let's stop here and Subhana Rabbika Rabbil Uzzati Amma Yassifoon. Wa Salam al-Mursaleen. Alhamdulillah Rabbil Alameen. Okay, so we can end recording here.