VOLUME NO. 4 (2013), ISSUE NO. 10 (OCTOBER) ISSN 0976-2183 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN COMMERCE & MANAGEMENT A Monthly Double-Blind Peer Reviewed (Refereed/Juried) Open Access International e-Journal - Included in the International Serial Directories http://ijrcm.org.in/ 152 BUYING BEHAVIOUR - AN ISLAMIC PERSPECTIVE: AN ANALYSIS OF AN IDEAL MUSLIM BUYING BEHAVIOUR TAHIR AHMAD WANI RESEARCH SCHOLAR JAMIA MILLIA ISLAMIA NEW DELHI ABSTRACT Consumer behaviour, since its inception as an academic term has always been associated with words like perceptions, habits, fashions, traditions, customs, cultures, resources or religious beliefs. Almost everyone including the so-called modern economists wish to delete the word “religious beliefs” from the dictionary of Economics, as the supporters of Positive Economics hold the view that the subject should be free from any ethical and morality postulates. However, Consumer Behaviour or Buying Behaviour is such a process which cannot be studied till we consider all the related facts, perceptions or beliefs that have a say in the whole process. This paper aims to unearth what Islam as a religion teaches about the buying behaviour. In other words, what should be the buying behaviour of a Muslim who believes in Oneness of God (Allah) and the day of Resurrection? The main aim of this paper is to uncover some important teachings from Quran and Sunnah (Teachings of the Prophet MuhammadPBUH) regarding the buying behaviour. KEYWORDS Buying Behaviour, Black Box Model, Quran, Islam, Holy Prophet, Sadaqaat, Khayraat. INTRODUCTION conomics, as defined by Britannica (2013), is the social science that seeks to analyse and describe the production, distribution, and consumption of wealth. On one side production and distribution and the challenges they pose have formed the substance of this subject for a very long time, In fact little attention was given to the consumption part. Today we realize that this part is the most complicated one among the three, for when we try to study consumption part we find our heads staring into a “Black Box,” of which we know nothing despite knowing everything. As defined by Hoyer et al (2008), consumer behaviour reflects the totality of consumer’s decisions with respect to the acquisition, consumption and dispositions of goods, services, activities and ideas by (human) decision making units (over time). Khan (2007) indicates that consumer behaviour can essentially be defined as the decision-making process and physical activity involved in acquiring, evaluating, using and disposing of goods and services. Both these definitions view buying behaviour as a set of processes one after another. According to the “Black Box” Model (perhaps Black Box model is contribution of Kurt Lewin, who happened to be a psychologist) of consumer behaviour, the whole behaviour of a consumer is dependent on two things: the external factors and secondly the internal processes (Black Box). TABLE 1: THE BLACK BOX MODEL External FACTORS BUYER'S BLACK BOX BUYER'S RESPONSE Marketing Stimuli Environmental Stimuli Buyer Characteristics Decision Process Product Price Place Promotion Economic Technical Political Cultural Social Attitudes Motivation Perceptions Personality Lifestyle Problem recognition Information search Alternative evaluation Purchase decision Post-purchase behavior Product choice Brand choice Dealer choice Purchase timing Purchase amount No buy Black box model of consumer buying behaviour, Source: Keegan et al. (1992, p. 193) Taking all what we have discussed so far we can sumup that buying behaviour is nothing but a decision-making process (processes are dependent on external and buyer characteristics) and physical activity involved in acquiring, evaluating, using and disposing of goods and services. Now coming to Islam, the holy bookQuran says “Indeed, the religion in the sight of Allah is Islam.” Islam means Submission to Almighty’s (Allah’s) will. From the teachings of Prophet Muhammad, it is clear that Islam doesn’t simply mean to submit one’s will to God by saying it.Rather it should reflect in one’s actions and behaviour as well. Islam is not a set of rituals like many other religions of the world; rather it is a complete code of life. This is the main reason why Islam is the only religion in the world to have its own financial, legal or political system. Abu Musanarrated, “Some people asked Allah’s Apostle, “Whose Islam is the best? i.e. (Who is a very good Muslim)? He replied, “One who avoids harming the Muslims with his tongue and hands.”(Bukhari: Book 1: Volume 2: Hadith 10). This hadith implies that human character/behaviour is comprised of two things i.e. thinking and doing and a good Muslim is one who has both in accordance with the will of the God (Allah). Verse no 208 of the Chapter 2 of Quran asks the same from Muslims, “O you who believe, enter Islam completely”. The Mufassireen (Scholars of Quran) have argued that Allah here commands Muslims to be a believer by both their actions/doings as well as from their heart/beliefs. They shall accept and follow the teachings of Islam bodily as well as spiritually. Thus Islam asks for a Muslim to change his physical as well as mental behaviour as per the will of the God. It means that a Muslims takes Islam into consideration in all walks of his life, be it social, legal, financial or any other. A Muslim takes into account the teachings of Islam when dealing into daily matters. So we can find that Islam and its teachings have a direct bearing on the behaviour of a Muslim. Behaviour is the range of actions and mannerisms made by an organism and Islam has provided its teachings both for actions as well as for mannerisms to a Muslim. Consequently the behaviour comes into action when a Muslim is indulged in a buying process. He tries to link the teachings of Islam with his buying problems and tries to buy the things in accordance to the teachings provided. So we will try to analyse what Islam teaches about buying things or in other way acquiring, evaluating, using and disposing of goods and services and how the behaviour of an ideal Muslim consumer differs from other non-Muslims. REVIEW OF LITERATURE To gain an insight of how the concept of Buying Behaviour has actually evolved, one has to go back to the theory of utility by Jeremy Bentham. He introduced the construct of ‘theory of utility’ in his book Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, published in1789. In it, he formulated the principle of utility, which approves of an action in so far as that action has an overall tendency to promote the greatest amount of happiness. He identified happiness with pleasure and the absence of pain. In his paper “Utility theory from Jeremy Bentham to Daniel Kahneman”, Daniel Read (2004) quotes Robert Sugden on meaning of utility. He says, “A standard model of motivation is that in which a person has a desire Y, and if he believes that by doing act X, he can achieve Y, then (assuming there is no barrier to doing X or some stronger desire than Y) he will choose X.” The normative problem of rationality concerns what choices and E