Islam and business

When it comes to making money, Muslim countries-particularly those in the Middle East-are best known for oil and gas. But dig a little deeper and you will find a wealth of different businesses. So says Dinar Standard, a new online business publication, which has produced an inaugural ranking of the top 100 domestic firms in the Muslim world-that is, the 57 countries that make up the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
The DS100 list, based on 2003 or latest revenues, is predictably dominated by oil and gas extractors in the Arab region. But the rest are an interesting mix of banks, telecom companies, construction firms and other businesses, stretching from Nigeria to Indonesia. Many have large markets outside the Islamic world-among them Koc Holding, a Turkish conglomerate whose subsidiaries include Arcelik, which sells household appliances across Europe. But only Petronas, a Malaysian oil and gas firm, also appears in the Fortune 500 list of top international firms. The combined 2003 revenue of firms in the DS100 was $512 billion, a mere 7% of that of the top 100 firms in Fortune's league table.
Ranking firms in the OIC is not easy, says Rafi-uddin Shikoh, editor of Dinar Standard. So many of its leading enterprises are either government-owned or privately-held. That makes accurate, publicly-disclosed results rare. For example, the revenue figures for Saudi Arabia's and Iran's main oil companies, the top two entries on the DS100, are simply estimates based on OPEC production statistics. Several big firms, among them Saudi Arabian Airlines and the National Iranian Steel Corporation, have been omitted because verifiable results were not available.
Some firms on the list are more overtly Muslim than others; for example, Savola Group, a Saudi Arabian food processor, which ranked 75th on the list, has incorporated a number of basic Islamic principles into its "Balanced Way", a sort of corporate code of conduct. Religious affiliation may seem an odd basis for classifying firms. But Mr Shikoh argues that it makes sense because firms in the OIC face a number of common management issues, among them problems with transparency and corporate governance, low levels of innovation and an image problem in the West.