Interest (usury)‏

"Those who devour usury will not stand except as stands one whom the Satan by his touch has driven to madness. That is because they say, "trade is like usury", but Allah has permitted trade and has forbidden usury" -- (Surah Al-baqarah verse no.275)

"Allah will deprive usury of all blessing, and will give increase for deeds of charity, for he does not love any ungrateful sinner." -- (Surah Al-baqarah verse no.276)

"Oh you who believe! Fear Allah and give up what remains of your demand for usury if you are indeed believers." -- (Surah Al-baqarah verse no.278)

Hazrat Jabir radiyallahu anhu has reported that the Messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihe wasallm cursed the devourer of usury, its payer, its scribe and its two witnesses. He also said that they were equal (in sin) -- (Muslim)

Hazrat Abu Hurairah radiyallahu anhu reported that the Messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihe wasallm said : Usury has got seventy divisions. The easiest division of them is a man marrying his mother. -- (Ibn Majah)

Hazrat Abu Hurairah radiyallahu anhu reported that the Messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihe wasallm said: I came across some people in the night in which I was taken to the heavens. Their stomachs were like houses wherein there were serpents, which could be seen from the front of their stomachs. I asked: O Gabriel! Who are these people? He replied these are those who devoured usury. -- (Ahmed, Ibn Majah)

Conclusion:
The summary of the matter is that interest is hazardous and should be abstained from in all manners. If anybody has a case they wish to solve then they should contact a Mufti and present their problem as it is. It’s not worth destroying the eternal life of the hereafter, just so that we may have a few more comforts in a life which can come to an end any moment. If for a moment, we think of worldly benefits alone then the following statement is the final verdict:

"Allah decreases interest and increases sadqah"

Let's all review our daily transactions and try to avoid all such matters which are considered interest/usury.

May ALLAH help us all!

Contradiction - A good example

Quoting from BBC’s online article:
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/country_profiles/1162668.stm)

“Afghanistan's drugs industry makes up around 60% of the economy. The trade has boomed since the fall of the Taliban and the country supplies 93% of the world's opium, the raw ingredient of heroin.

International bodies and governments say the drugs trade is helping to fuel the Taliban insurgency, which is estimated to receive up to US$100m a year from the trade.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime has called on Afghanistan to target the major traffickers and corrupt government officials, who it says operate with impunity in the country.”

Now in the first para, the author is claiming that the drug industry has boomed since the “FALL” of Taliban (this means that this trade was not booming under Taliban)….. but in the second para, the author is quoting international bodies and governments that the drug industry is helping Taliban and they are actually receiving around US $100m.

NOW IF THE TALIBANS IN AFGHANISTAN WERE SO CONVINCED ABOUT RECEIVING CASH FROM DRUG INCOME, THEN WHY THEY DID NOT ALLOW THIS INDUSTRY TO FLOURISH UNDER THEIR OWN REGIME???

<<<>>>>
You people must be thinking why I am circulating this article…… so that we don’t just blindly believe what media is telling/showing us! (so don’t even believe me, see the article online and judge yourself)

Geo TV...not again!

I was watching a program on Geo TV titled “Hum Sub Umeed Say Hain” on this Saturday and was shocked to see the way it was humiliating Islamic Law. A dummy newspaper advertisement was shown stating that Taliban is hiring people for executing Islamic law and the job description was like “Qasai”, “Kochwan”, etc…

In my point of view, we can argue about whether a punishment given to an individual is right or wrong but as far as the method of punishment is concerned there should not be any doubt in our minds; and we should respect the method as it is not created by any human being (for immediate reference, please refer to Surah Noor)

I was also thinking about the disrespect for our beloved Prophet (SAW) by European newspapers…..is this of the same category???

Job satisfaction

People often talk about job satisfaction. There seems to be another job/position somewhere else in this world which is better than the one you are currently working with and if you manage to get hold onto that job, another job/position pops up and you find yourself in the very same situation. It seems like a never ending cycle searching for job satisfaction.

How to avoid this…. well one needs to consider that every job is satisfying provided you think like that. Every job has problems and probably there is no job in this world which is problem free. The problem category might vary but problems never vanish. So one needs to be optimistic about the way a person approaches his/her job.

Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) v3.0 - A brief introduction

ITIL v3.0 Introduction

• A set of books that describes best practices for IT management
• It provides body of knowledge useful for achieving ISO/IEC 20000
• ITIL is developed by OGC (Office of Government Commerce), an independent Office of the Treasury reporting to the Chief Secretary, previously known as CCTA (Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency)
  

ITIL v3.0 Components

• ITIL Core

1. Service Strategy
2. Service Design
3. Service Transition
4. Service Operation
5. Continual Service Improvement
   

• ITIL Complementary Guidance

1. ITIL v3.0 - Service Strategy

• Focuses on the identification of market opportunities for which services could be developed in order to meet a requirement on the part of internal or external customers
• The output is a strategy for the design, implementation, maintenance and continual improvement of the service as an organizational capability and a strategic asset
  

2. ITIL v3.0 - Service Design

• Focuses on the activities that take place in order to develop the strategy into a design document which addresses all aspects of the proposed service, as well as the processes intended to support it

3. ITIL v3.0 - Service Transition

• Focuses on the implementation of the output of the service design activities and the creation of a production service or modification of an existing service
• There is an area of overlap between Service Transition and Service Operation
  

4. ITIL v3.0 - Service Operation

• Focuses on the activities required to operate the services and maintain their functionality as defined in the Service Level Agreements with the customers

5. ITIL v3.0 - Continual Service Improvement

• Focuses on the ability to deliver continual improvement to the quality of the services that the IT organization delivers to the business

ITIL v3.0 - Certification

• ITIL Foundation Certification
• ITIL Practitioner Certification
• ITIL Service Manager Certification
  

References:
http://www.ogc.gov.uk/
http://www.itil-officialsite.com/
http://www.itil.co.uk/
http://itservicemngmt.blogspot.com/2007/12/itil-v3-qualification-scheme.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/

PROJECT MANAGEMENT PROFESSIONAL (PMP) EXAM - LESSON LEARNED

1. My exam preparation was not continuous as I had to do the exam preparation with my job. So the time span for the preparation was from 5-7 months. Initially it was roughly one hour per day including gaps between days.

2. My initial plan was to learn different concepts presented in PMBOK so for some topics I was going into a bit of detail which later helped me in the exam preparation.

3. It is recommended that you should try to implement what PMBOK is saying at your workplace as it was quite easy for me to remember earned value/planned value and performance reporting as I was involved in preparing monthly progress reports for three projects at my work place.

4. If you have not done your training yet, make sure you schedule the training after going through the course once. As five days are quite hectic and one can easily lose way in the middle of the training. Remember training is important.

5. Regarding Input/T&T/Output; rather than learning by heart just try to understand the concept.

6. Sample questions are VERY important, make sure you understand and theme behind your incorrect answers. Free sample questions are available from different website (Google will help you in this).

7. Joining different groups on yahoo also help a lot as some the material there is quite helpful especially the lesson learned from those who have appeared in the exam.

8. Make sure you visit the exam site once before your exam. Even the exam center was in my city, it took me some time to find the site on my first visit.

9. Four hours is quite ample time for answering 200 questions. So don’t worry if some questions are taking a bit more time. I recommend you to take at least one break (I personally took two breaks).

10. I tried to answer almost all the questions in my first attempt. If I was 80% sure about the answer I still marked that answer for later review.

11. PRAYERS; the most influential ingredient for my exam success. I did not have the expected build-up to my exam. Two-Three days before the exam my grandfather was quite sick and I even though about rescheduling my exam. Last day before exam, the electricity went off for four hours. BUT ALLAH ALMIGHTY HELPED ME AND I MANAGED TO PASS THE EXAM.

Measuring Customer Response for Process Improvement

In a rapidly changing competitive environment, the importance of information gathering and analysis cannot be underestimated as famously quoted “You Cannot Manage That Which You Cannot Measure”.

The best source of information in any industry are the customers and the employees in the customer service department, especially those who are receiving customer complaints via UAN number or helpline email, can be the source of some very valuable information that is required for effective process management and improvement. The information received can uncover issues which may not even be on the executive agenda.

It is important to plan this initiative as carrying out this initiative on ad hoc basis can lead to undesirable outcomes including unexpected process variations, low staff morale, etc. It is also important to define broad categories or areas that you want to concentrate on. Mostly technical complaints are received via UAN number or emails so your need to take this factor into account.


For an ISP, typical technical categories will include:

• Connection Setup Problem

• Internet Speed Problem

• Disconnection Problem

In addition to technical categories, the general categories can include:

• Accessibility Problem

• Support Staff Behavior Problem

Once the categories are defined, the next step is to collect data based on the categories defined above. The customer service representative can perform this data categorization. If a software solution is not available, a simple excel sheet can be used.


Once the data is categorized the next step is to do the data analysis. The most suitable technique might be to use Pareto chart to identify major problem areas as it is not feasible to resolve all the problems at the same time. There are software programs available that can draw a Pareto chart based on the available information (As a sample I have shown the extract from MINITAB).


Now at this point in time you will have an idea about the areas you need to focus on for improvements. It is important to realize that one should look at this information in totality (e.g. if you have 1,000,000 subscribers then receiving around 80 internet speed complaints is not a major issue as opposed to having 200 corporate customers out which 80 of them are complaining about the internet speed).

In case of corporate customers (which are an important source for maintaining cash flow), one needs to be proactive so a regular survey should be conducted to listen from those customer which, despite having problems, are not willing to tell them to their service providers.

By doing such activities, it will be much easier to justify the need for improvement projects as it directly relates to the main source of revenue i.e. the customers.