Al-Madina newspaper

BUSINESSMEN who make money by selling products and services on special occasions are the most rich and the ones who are able to smartly rip people's pockets and eat into their savings. Those who deal in weapons on the black market are the perhaps the most dangerous of businessmen because they incite conflicts around the world and then sell weapons to the antagonists. Others are businessmen who monopolize the sale of basic products such as food, medicines and clothes. The moment they see trouble on the horizon or political instability, they empty the shelves of products and hoard them in their warehouses, only to release them back to the market at a very high price.

Then there is this type of businessmen who are called seasonal vendors. They sell their unsold products in the name of clearing stocks at discounts that could reach up to 70 percent. They lure people to buy products that they do not actually need, and people's hard-earned savings end up in the accounts of businessmen.

As for traders who do business on religious occasions, they flood the markets with clothes, sweets and children's toys, so the head of the house loses all his savings within a few days and suffer for the rest of the month.

Businessmen argue that it is important for money to circulate in the economy to generate jobs.

Japan faced an economic recession last century. Housewives stopped from buying stuff that are not important or essential. This behavior led the products to pile in the warehouses. The government issued checks randomly and distributed them and housewives in order to spend for New Year shopping, but the women refused to utilize the checks because it was public money.

Since we are in the end-of-the-year shopping season many discounts are announced on the Internet, satellite channels, newspapers and magazines. There are also entertainment programs and festivals that attract people to travel outside the Kingdom, benefiting from the New Year offers.

It is within the interest of the national economy as well as the citizens' savings to pass on messages on social media and to create awareness programs on the bases of the following Qur’anic verses:

And do not make your hand [as] chained to your neck or extend it completely and [thereby] become blamed and insolvent. (Holy Qur'an 17: 29).

Those who, when they spend, are not extravagant and not niggardly, but hold a just (balance) between those extremes). (Holy Qur'an 25:67).