Allah Consciousness as a Solution for Fraud

High Integrity and Moral Compass (March Topic)

God-Consciousness As a Solution for Fraud

The world has witnessed many cases of corporate frauds, some resulting in enormous effects on the economy. Enron once heralded as “America’s Most Innovative Company” is now a popular symbol of wilful corporate fraud and unethical accounting practices. Similarly Worldcom was another darling of Wall Street until it filed for bankruptcy in 2002. It was found the directors were using fraudulent accounting methods to push up the stock price. In the case of Baring Bank, the 233 year old bank was brought to its knees by a single rogue trader named Nick Leeson.  . Parmalat an Italian global producer of UH milk and food products, was engulfed in scandal when its founder Calisto Tanzi diverted the company funds’ elsewhere. Investments in subprime mortgages, lead to the failure of investment banks like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers which triggered the global financial crisis.

These stories of greed, bribery and fraud lead to the popularity of the field of corporate governance. It became the new buzzword that all corporate leaders and business schools harped on. The onslaught of scandals also introduced new regulations like the Sarbanes-Oxley Bill (also known as the Corporate Oversight Bill) into law. This law imposes a number of corporate governance rules on all public companies with stock traded in the United States. The UK Corporate Governance Code is a set principles of good corporate governance aimed at companies listed on the London Stock Exchange. Audit committees were established and independent directors and non-executive directors were appointed to ensure oversight and proper governance. Unfortunately it did not stop the unethical behaviour. The current demands on banks and corporations to show enormous profits push some of the corporate leaders towards fraud despite the many laws and regulations in place.

This brings to mind the story of Caliph Umar Al Khattab (R.A) who was travelling from Madinah to Makkah, and on the way he saw an African boy tending to his lambs.  The Caliph asked the boy if he could sell one of the lambs to him. The boy replied he can’t do so because the lambs didn’t belong to him. The Caliph further prodded him by asking him to lie to his master that a wolf ate the lamb. The boy said he could cheat his master but could he cheat the Great Master who was listening to both of them? Sayyidina Umar (R.A) was so impressed that he bought the slave boy and set him free. The African slave boy was illiterate, he was not taught by scholars nor did he read books of knowledge but he had Allah- consciousness that made him do the right thing.

Being in the state of God- consciousness, believing that God is overseeing our actions, is a very simple act but the consequences of this belief is enormous. Human resource management can be very efficient because everyone would fulfil the duties of his or her job without supervision. There would be less need for scrutiny, oversight, laws and regulations.  Although the concept of God- consciousness has eroded in our societies and the advent of crime has increased rampantly including white collar crimes; each one of us can still make a difference. Each one of us can become the God- conscious individual and through our communication and dealing with other members of society, bring back this character which was an inborn trait (fitrah) of human beings. We can strive for a future of communities that would be renowned for their character and truthfulness.