Religion's Influence on Business

The three legal systems discussed here will be Islamic Law, Hindu Law and the Confucian Code.

Islamic Law

According to Schaffer (2009) over 20% of the world’s population follows the Muslim religion and is influenced by Islamic Law. Islamic law is the most vital and potentially the most influential of all non-western law systems. Doi (1984) expressed that a common misconception about Islamic law is that it is identical to the law of Muslim countries. Many countries have a majority of Islamic population, and several other countries have sizable Muslim minorities. Many of these countries are completely secular states, often with legal systems following the civil law tradition. Many others declare themselves to be Islamic states, yet continue to apply a secular system of law, often based upon the civil law such as Pakistan (Schaffer 2009). Dual systems of law are common; for example, in many countries matters of family law, property rights and inheritance are decided according to Islamic law, while matters involving contracts, corporations and the like are dealt with according to secular law (Ainsworth 1992). A dual court system is also common: Religious judges (qadis) apply Islamic law, while secular judges apply secular law (Ainsworth 1992). The Shari’a is the divinely revealed law of Islam; in becoming a Muslim, one submits oneself to the rule of Shari’a. The underlying text of Shari’a is the Qur’an. The Qur’an is also the “canon” of Islam, Saudi Arabia is an example of a country ruled by Shari’a (Schaffer 2009). Islamic law has basically 3 sources, the Qur’an, the Sunna and the ijma (Ainsworth 1992). The Sunna contains the hadeeth, or the record of the acts, statements and life of the Prophet Mohammed. The ijma is that body of law agreed on by past Islamic legal scholars and recorded in books of fikh (law), used by qadis in deciding cases. In describing how these all work together, Abdul-Haqq (2002) stated, "While the principles and injunctions of the Shari'ah...