Attitudes on Merchants and Trade

Attitudes On Merchants and Trade

There are many similarities and differences on the attitude of Merchants and Trade by Islam and Christianity. These two religious superpowers share many views and attitudes to these two areas, but also have differences. The attitude of Merchants and Trade by Islam and Christianity can be seen by references to holy books, how others portray the merchants and trade, and how merchants and traders act in Christianity and Islam.

The holy book of Christianity is the Bible, and in the New Testament an article, written by Matthew, states "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than a rich man to enter to the Kingdom of Heaven" (1). This passage is proclaiming that greedy, wealth men such as merchants are going against everything the Christian faith stands for. And that God looks poorly upon merchants and traders. But in the Koran, the holy book of Islam, states "On the day of judgment, the honest, truthful Muslim merchant will take rank with the martyrs of the faith" (2). This emits a sense of rightfulness for a Muslim merchant and that it is ok to be a merchant. These two contradict each other and show differences on how the founders of both religions viewed trade and merchants. But understand that the authors of both documents were holy men and only doing what there god has commanded provides Intel on why the wrote their opinions.

Merchants and Traders both view there occupations as their way of life. But the way Christianity and Islam portray the actions of said merchants and traders are very different. A roman writer named Cicero says "Contracts should be entirely free of double dipping: the seller must not impose upon the bidder, and the buyer upon one that bids against him" (4). Cicero is a Roman Catholic and has written based on the ideas of Christianity. The Christian attitude is that goods should be sold and bough ten at the same price and should not be bargained over. But according to Ibn Khaldun, a leading Muslim scholar, states "This is why Law allows the use of such methods although they come under the heading of gambling" (5). This shows that Islam's attitude is that barging is ok and allows for a corrupt system of trading that allows for merchants to get rich off of overpriced products.

The view of others is very important and in documents 3, 6, and 7 we get accounts of other people's attitudes of Christian and Islamic merchants. In Document 3 the author, Reginald, talks about a young merchant after 16 years as finally thought of charity to please god. This shows that Christians are wanting to use their attitudes of equality to get charity founding and to not be selfish. In both documents 6 and 7, the authors are trying to portray at sense of equality throughout the merchants and traders. And that they both should try and up hold their acts of equality and silently.