Islam-Finance.com Blog & News

We’ve been researching the idea of targeted advertising for both Islam-Finance.com and IslamiCompare.com and the focus for the last 6-10 weeks was to come to a compromise on both target and price (obviously!).

The thing is with Muslim dating sites, is that there are loads available on the web, but after much consultation and debate with muslims online and offline, it became apparent to us that so many of these islamic dating sites are full of lurkers, members under misleading pseudonyms and general mis-direction. This is merely our personal opinion.

The question is, should this put us off in advertising on muslim dating sites? The answer is no as it is, without a doubt, very targeted, raises the profile of a company and provides a platform to offer a useful service as opposed to - and I say this with the utmost respect - nasheed downloading, muslim forums, jelbabs and similar items.

So far, we’ve been in discussion with Qiran.com and SingleMuslim.com about advertising and working together, but nothing has come to a conclusion yet. We’ve also taken a look at Shaadi.com, Nikah.com and Muslima.com. We have advertised on Muslimmatch.com but that really has bore no fruition and the reason for this is the same reason as to why we will probably not be advertising on Qiran.com, even though it probably is the world’s most recognised Muslim dating and matrimonial website.

The key word in the last sentence is “world”. The targeting is just not right. Despite Qiran.com being based primarily in Canada and having an Alexa rank of just under 6,000, one needs to look at the visitor list to recognise it would be meaningless to spend hundreds of dollars for either Islam-Finance.com or IslamiCompare.com:

1. Egypt 20.3%
2. Morocco 10.2%
3. Kuwait 6.8%
4. Palestinian Territory 6.6%
5. Algeria 6.4%

…United States 2.2%
…United Kingdom 1.6%
…Canada 0.9%

(source: alexa.com)

So the search goes on! We’ll let you know when we find the right avenue for advertising on muslim dating websites.

I get asked a question all the time, mostly from Non-muslims actually as they are intrigued by the concept more than anything.

How does an Islamic Investment count as an investment? How can the investor benefit?

Now, when one thinks of an investment, it may be in a bond, share or real estate as typical examples. However, with Islamic Investments money can only be earned or the investment realised if it is something real and tangible i.e. it has to be productive.

This is why depositing a lump sum of say $10,000 in a high-yielding savings account just isn’t islamically correct as the interest is earned non-productively.

The biggest action of islamic finance products is probably the Murhaba or cost-plus financing, which is being used by approximately three-quarters of islamic finance projects. This type of lending can be arranged on mortgages, auto purchases, buying land and so on. Alternatives include the Musharaka and the Mudaraba financing, or profit-sharing and equity participation - both legitimate according to Islamic Scholars on joint purchases.

Assalamu Alaikum!

Since our last newsletter, we’ve been trying hard to incept a similar cashback system to what we have on our sister site in the UK, IslamiCompare.com

We are now happy to announce that we’ll be bringing freebies, offers and deals to our muslim users in the UK and offering cashback on some of these. And we’re going to kickstart things off right now:

- Earn $2 just to sign up and and recieve a 30 day free credit score trial.
- Instead of pocketing the $2 via paypal, donate to one of the pre-selected islamic charities.

Insha’allah we’ll be bringing you more super deals like this in the future and it’s your choice what you do with the cash earned. Pocket it, or donate it to halal causes.

Jazakallah Khairan!

News & Offers
Islam-Finance.com

Yes, it’s biased! We know, and we’ll keep saying it loudly, IslamiCompare.com has the best and most generous affiliate / referral scheme for UK muslims. It pays £5($10) for every name and email submit.

It doesn’t even ask for mailing address or credit card details, and is specifically directed towards the UK muslim community, but is available for non-muslim users too.

The site is a cashback shopping site which gives the user cashback from more than 1200 shops online, including many high street stores on online specialists too. There are also freebies which the user can earn money from. Plus vouchers to give the user further discounts.

To finish things off, IslamiCompare.com promises to give 10% of it’s profits to Islamic organisations and charities in the USA, UK, Palestine and Iraq.

So what are you waiting for? Sign up to IslamiCompare.com and get paid £5 to just sign up. And then… refer everyone and anyone and you’ll get £5 for any referral. Quite simply, the most generous muslim affiliate program out there!

I really do think Muslims struggle online when it comes to assisting each other and creating an exchange to promote each others services. The best exchange portal that comes to mind is bestislamicsites.com, which has a good looking portal and easy system in place to look and support other affiliate islamic sites.

When it comes to commercial or affiliate marketing, then again, we’re running blindly towards a clothesline full of jilbabs, burkhas and headscarves. The only islamic affiliate offer we know of is, surprise surprise, a jilbab shop online that operates through shareasale.com. They offer 10% on sales made. Great, you might think, but not really when you consider the huge market potential for UK and USA muslims.

That is the only one we can find, which is pretty dismal. If you know of any more through recognised affiliate operators such as affiliatewindow or cj.com, then be sure to PM us, or leave a comment here.

There are other muslim affiliate sites, but they have their own in-house program, which isn’t the most time-effective way of generating affiliate partners, especially when it comes to tweaking and optimising ads. Over the next few articles, we’ll review each affiliate programme which has a minimum Islamic bias, so keep a lookout!

What better way to start this than reviewing our very own IslamiCompare.com referral/affiliate offer, which we believe to be the most generous or rewarding affiliate programme for UK muslims.

A prominent Canadian Muslim, representing the Muslim Canadian Congress has labeled modern interpretations of Sharia Loans and Mortgages as the “biggest con job ever”. Is he right?

The Muslim Canadian Congress argues that “Religion has no place in the banking or mortgage industry, supported by the fact that most Canadian Muslims already using conventional and standard methods in financing their home purchases.

This does not mean that there is not a demand for other products though, and as we’ve repeatedly seen in the media, Islamic Financing is worth millions and is one of the fastest growing sectors in finance.

Sharia based banking is available in Canada, but is not as strong as the products in the UK or the USA, which has latched onto this concept and is developing products through banks.

But is the Canadian Muslim Congress right? Is it just a load of the same, repackaged and sold off to muslims in order for them to eventually head off to heaven as good, god-fearing Muslims? Maybe they have a point.

As it stands right now, any logical person surely would be deceiving himself or herself if they viewed these products as completely Islamic. There’s just something not quite right about it. The mortgage loan is generally set up in a way that the homeowner ends up leasing from the bank, who own the title deeds. This is in effect paying ‘rent’ instead of interest. At the end of the leasing period, the deeds are transferred to you and you own the property. However, the ‘rent’ is set at an amount which usually puts the borrower at a disadvantage and they end up paying at least one extra percentage point more.

Let’s look at it another way. If a muslim person goes to the local muslim butchers and walks past several local butchers in the UK that don’t serve the halal-seeking community, then should he be expected to pay a premium on the halal certified shank of lamb, poultry or whatever he’s expecting the wife to cook up that night? Just because it’s halal, does he have to pay extra for it?

In the west, this has changed and go into any halal butchers market in New York or London and you’ll see Muslims and Non-muslims buying the same halal certified meat, priced at standard prices as the Joe Bloggs butchers round the corner.

The point is, when halal meat was first introduced in the UK, it was a little pricier than normal meat, but it eventually levelled itself off and is now competitively priced as standard fare. The difference between halal finance and halal meat is that halal meat has always been halal meat from the very beginning. The same cannot be said of the Islamic financing concept in the West.