I only have two big things to add, one on the issue of women's rights and Islam, and not just regarding the hijab. There's this common perception that in Muslim-majority cultures that women are treated as second-rate people and therefore it's part of the religion but the fact is that the Prophet Muhammad's wife Khadija, who is a wealthy entrepreneur, kept all of her money and property as her own after her marriage in 6th century BC. Now, when did English women receive the right to own property? 1882. The US granted women that right within that century as well. Who's backward now?
Secondly, aside from just paying zakat, Islam also sees interest and any other charges put on the time value of money without creating real goods and services as prohibited. This is because money isn't an end unto itself but simply a way of transferring value, but it isn't value itself. Money must be used to pay for real goods or services, not cycled through big banks to become more and more inflated as Wall Street has done in the years leading to the global financial crisis. In a Shariah-compliant loan, the money lender must take part in the business that the money is meant to be used for, becoming essentially business partners who will share the profit with the borrower. Say, you borrow $10 to open a lemonade stand and make $5 profit, that's split between you and whoever lent you that money. That's Shariah compliant. If the lender says, pay me back $12 whether or not you sold any lemonade, that's forbidden, as $2 is arbitrary and inflated and not based on any actual goods or services.
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I only have two big things to add, one on the issue of women's rights and Islam, and not just regarding the hijab. There's this common perception that in Muslim-majority cultures that women are treated as second-rate people and therefore it's part of the religion but the fact is that the Prophet Muhammad's wife Khadija, who is a wealthy entrepreneur, kept all of her money and property as her own after her marriage in 6th century BC. Now, when did English women receive the right to own property? 1882. The US granted women that right within that century as well. Who's backward now?
Secondly, aside from just paying zakat, Islam also sees interest and any other charges put on the time value of money without creating real goods and services as prohibited. This is because money isn't an end unto itself but simply a way of transferring value, but it isn't value itself. Money must be used to pay for real goods or services, not cycled through big banks to become more and more inflated as Wall Street has done in the years leading to the global financial crisis. In a Shariah-compliant loan, the money lender must take part in the business that the money is meant to be used for, becoming essentially business partners who will share the profit with the borrower. Say, you borrow $10 to open a lemonade stand and make $5 profit, that's split between you and whoever lent you that money. That's Shariah compliant. If the lender says, pay me back $12 whether or not you sold any lemonade, that's forbidden, as $2 is arbitrary and inflated and not based on any actual goods or services.